During the long dreary winter months well-known Caledon artist Carol Mangiagalli was hard at work painting bright colourful paintings for an upcoming spring exhibition, with fynbos the theme of the paintings.
Painting in the naïve style, the fynbos she depicts are not replicas of botanical specimens, but form a key part of her delightfully quirky painting style. Explaining her style, Carol said:” It has a lot to do with imagination. You don’t slavishly copy a scene. One observes things and then paints it how you saw it. You simplify it and don’t necessarily put in all the details.”
French painter Henri Rousseau is one of the best-known naïve-style painters, and although inspired by him, she paints in her own specific style.
Carol’s art journey started by making cloth collage paintings as well as painting on glass. She also does a lot of papier-mâché work.
Born in South Africa, Carol spent most of her childhood years in Zambia before attending the Johannesburg School of Art in her last two years of school, after which she studied fine art for a year.
She has always been a free spirit and a flower child at heart and tells a delightful story of how she went home to Zambia wearing a beautiful lilac mini dress which a friend had covered in purple lino print. Carol’s mother took one look at her and said: “Now take that off and I’ll give it back to you when you leave.”
Amid peals of laughter, she relates how the same thing happened when she cut a hole in a blanket and wore it as a poncho.
After art school Carol worked as a designer for a textile company for a while before a friend suggested she move to Cape Town.
“My colleagues in the textile company said Cape Town was full of flower children. I had no idea what they were talking about!”
After pounding the pavements for weeks trying to find a job, she was employed by City Library as an assistant librarian, a perfect job for a bookworm.
Carol has lived in Heidelberg and Robertson and also spent three years in Ireland as a housekeeper and cook for a family living in a big country house.
“I don’t like cooking,” she declared “I got so stressed about cooking, not so much for the family, but for dinner parties!
“I had a fabulous boss. At the first dinner party he told me to relax and that by the time the guests arrived at the table they would not know the difference between a pancake and a cowpat and promptly handed me a big glass of champagne.”
Carol still does not like cooking and recently managed to burn eggs that she was boiling. “I got distracted, most likely painting, and when I saw again the kitchen was covered in smoke. The eggs and the pot were completely black, so I just threw the whole lot out.”
From 1990 to 2007 she worked at the Caledon Museum, where she organised and curated local art and history exhibitions, managed the museum shop as well as the local tourism office.
Carol loves travelling and has frequently visited her son when he lived in Prague as well as Barcelona where he now resides. “My travels have often inspired my work,” she said.
As a child Carol had a vivid imagination, which is now reflected in her very distinctive art.
“I started painting when I was 8 years old and hope to be able to continue for many years to come.”
Her works are collectors’ pieces, many having found homes with overseas buyers.
The spring paintings will be exhibited at Chandler House in Cape Town in September.
. For details of exhibition dates (which were not finalised by the time of going to print), please visit www.chandlerhouse.co.za
