Written by Lungile Ngcobo
Collaborative Printer: Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim
Fourie at the David Krut Workshop surrounded by her freshly printed monotypes.
David Krut Projects continues its meaningful and evolving relationship with South African artist Heidi Fourie, whose intuitive and immersive approach to image-making has led to a rich series of collaborations at the David Krut Workshop (DKW) since 2017.
Heidi brings a painter’s sensitivity to the monotype process. Her work is rooted in observation and guided by a responsiveness to materials and environment, a quality that aligns naturally with her oil painting, drawing, and printmaking practice. Her work centres on exploring the delicate relationship between people, animals, and their environments, brought to life through gestural mark-making, layered textures, and atmospheric depth.
Over the years, Fourie has established herself as a thoughtful observer of the natural world. Her work is characterised by a fluid balance between restraint and spontaneity. At DKW, Fourie has continually deepened her investigation into how technical processes – whether watercolour or oil-based monotype – can support intuitive expression. Jumping between mediums, she challenges herself to work methodically while allowing her materials to guide the process. Watercolours allow for a slow, layered approach, while oil-based inks require her to work quickly, keeping marks loose and gestural.
Her work is often led by curiosity and the physicality of the medium. She explains that she is interested in how brushstrokes can evoke both form and feeling and how a mark can behave like a memory or a flicker of movement.
In the workshop, Heidi prepares her oil-based monotype by painting directly onto the matrix before pulling the print.
Heidi Fourie enhances her monotype print by adding delicate handwork with watercolour paints, bringing additional texture and detail to the final piece.
This attention to both material and subject has been at the heart of her collaborations with DKW. Early collaborations saw her translating gestural oil paintings into fluid monotypes that retained the immediacy of hand and atmosphere.
Later series, such as On Soft Ground (2022), introduced etching and drawing-based techniques, reflecting her interest in the possibilities of layering and narrative within print.
In early 2025, Fourie returned to DKW to further explore watercolour and oil-based monotypes with her long-time collaborative printer, Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim. This time, she drew inspiration from her Witklipfontein residency in the Vredefort Dome, as well as from time spent at the Cedar peak guest farm and Lion Sands Game Reserve, where she was immersed in a dynamic natural environment. There, the subjects she encountered – vervet monkeys, nyalas, bushbabies, and migratory swallows – began to populate her prints, marking a shift toward a more intimate portrayal of animal life and ecological cycles.
She didn’t think she would paint animals, she recalls. It felt too expected. But over time, she became captivated by their subtle expressions and behaviours, such as the way a vervet monkey tended to a wounded companion or how a curious bushbaby would visit her studio window under the full moon.
Fourie, 2025, lungs full of air, Watercolour monotype on Zerkall Intaglio paper, 68.5x80cm
Her most recent body of work also reflects a growing interest in fire as both subject and metaphor. Studying ‘veld’ (open, uncultivated country or grassland in southern Africa) management and the role of controlled burns, Fourie began to explore fire not only as a visual phenomenon – glow, twist, smoke – but also as a powerful symbol of regeneration and destruction. This unruly energy finds a perfect counterpart in the monotype process, where pigment behaves with similar unpredictability.
The slipperiness of the plate, the way the ink shifts and resettles, reminds her of fire’s movement, its chaos and rhythm.
Heidi and Kim-Lee pulling an oil-based monotype from the press.
The collaboration between Heidi Fourie and David Krut Projects continues to be one of reciprocal growth. Through each residency and workshop session, Fourie has expanded her technical vocabulary while staying true to her artistic style and in return, the David Krut Workshop has offered a space where experimentation is not only supported but celebrated.
As we look ahead to the RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, we are excited to share Fourie’s new paintings and prints, which speak to connection, transformation, and the wild beauty of the natural world.
Explore our viewing room catalogue to discover more of Heidi’s featured work at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025.