An artist from Somerset West who has been painting with watercolour for almost 40 years, with nature and scenery his favourite subjects, is using his skills with the brush to assist the Lourens River Conservation Society with raising funds.
Stephen Quirke is hard at work producing a 2023 calendar featuring different views of the Lourens River from its source to its mouth and everything in between.
Speaking to DistrictMail & Helderberg Gazette,
Quirke has lived in Somerset West for 30 years. Though he still produces watercolours of the desert most of them now cover local scenes. He says he loves the Helderberg, its peak and the False Bay coastline, both featured in his works.
“We have these beautiful places in our town made accessible through the forethought of planners in our past and the generosity of land-owners today,” he says.
“On good days one may find him sketching at Vergelegen Estate, in Radloff Park or the Strand beachfront.
The artist’s 2022 calendar featured a collaboration between himself and Patch Helderberg, which helped raise funds for the centre for sexually abused children (“Calendar launched”, Helderberg Gazette, 3 August 2021), and the year before that launched a calendar featuring Radloff Park.
He also has a deep love for the river flowing through the region. “Water, flowing over rocks and under trees, is such a special gift,” he declares, “and a river flowing out of our town, through our neighbour downstream, and out to sea carries just a hint of adventure. I think so anyway. And here is something really neat! When you stand at the river mouth, you can see the source. How cool is that? It is just a beautiful river.”
Quirke says he is keen to point the beauty of the views up- and downstream out to people through his watercolours, and his latest set of paintings is all about the river.
His latest calendar, for 2023, features these watercolours. “I was keen to cover the river from source to mouth. There are scenes in the farms upstream, in the town and at the mouth,” Quirke says.
“When I couldn’t gain access to the source from the basin I hiked around from Jonkershoek, where I made this beautiful watercolour looking down to the mouth of the river from Diepgat, where the Lourens River is just a trickle through shattered quartzite boulders.”
Quirke also wants to draw attention to the work being carried out to protect the river by the Lourens River Conservation Society (LRCS). “They do some good work on the river and I am contributing a percentage of the proceeds from the calendar to this group,” he says. “I also have a sponsorship offer to any organisations interested in presenting themselves in the calendar.”
Jan Tromp, vice-chairperson of the LRCS, says the group was very excited to have Quirke’s support. “The calendar will depict various scenes and aspects of the river with useful descriptions,” he shares. “We aim to use the calendar to raise funds, but most of all raise public awareness and to invite volunteers to join us in our conservation of the river.”
Tromp adds that the main purpose of the fundraising is to offer temporary employment opportunities for cleaning the river and removing alien vegetation to make the river area cleaner and safer for all.
Quirke also encourages visitors to his website to sign up for his newsletter by filling out a form on the site. He sends out a monthly newsletter Light is Sweet in which he talks about the work coming out of his studio. He also shows his work at his home gallery (by appointment).
V View his work at www.sjqwatercolour.com.
