b i o g r a p h i c a l   o u t l i n e
by Sarah McCarthy

        1965
Paul du Toit is born on 31 October to Andries and Jeannette, at the Marymount Convent Hospital in Johannesburg. The family lives in Mayfair, Johannesburg, next door to Paul's artist aunt, Elizabeth van der Sandt. He divides his growing years between his father's workshop and his aunt's studio. He creates sculptures in the workshop out of electrical gadgets, and next door his aunt tutors him in oil painting techniques. His mother spends countless hours with him at the library. Later, Paul views the hunger for knowledge that she instills in him as one of his greatest assets.

        1970
Paul's family moves to Roodepoort, and Paul begins his schooling in 1972. 'I had a big problem with authority, and never enjoyed school,' he says.

        1976
Paul contracts juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 11, and spends the next three years in and out of hospitals and wheelchairs. He learns the value of perseverance, and 'how to make a plan'. In hospital he is profoundly affected by seeing other patients, some better off than him, others worse.

        1977
Paul is inspired by a visit to the circus and the sight of a clown getting ready for the next show. He is struck by the colourful makeup used to create a fake smile and comical features, and thinks about these images for months afterwards. These variations of happy and sad clown faces appear in Paul's mature works. Still an invalid, he paints when he can, reducing his art to simple line drawings and sketches from memory. He sells his first painting, and buys himself a set of oils with the proceeds.

        1978
Paul gradually recovers from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, with a rebellious attitude of 'I survived that; I can do anything'. While recovering in hospital he receives art books from his family about Miro and Picasso. This makes a lasting impression and the influences are clearly visible in his work today.

        1980
Paul becomes lead singer and lead guitarist of a school punk-rock band. They perform one gig. He is part of a close group of twelve friends, called 'The Mob'. He meets his future wife, Lorette Olivier, at 15. They fall in love, and the relationship survives the fact that he ends up a year behind her in their final school years.

        1983
Paul is held back a year at high school, apparently for dressing (and behaving) like Sid Vicious on Spring Day.

        1984
Paul matriculates.

        1985
Paul is conscripted to the South African Air Force. His rugby skills gain him a soft ticket and some free time and he is able to spend the next two years of his service doing carpentry; he makes lots of picture frames. He casts his first bronze, of an aeroplane. In the second year of his service he wants to study art part-time at the Pretoria Technikon, but the course is four years long, and he cannot afford it. He settles for a part-time one-year course in computer science instead.

        1987
Straight out of the army, Paul finds a job as a computer programmer. The personal computer arrives in South Africa, and Paul joins a software house that builds and sells PCs, and writes mainframe software. He paints in his spare time.

        1988
Lorette and Paul marry in January 1988.

        1989
A combination of poor business practice and the effects of sanctions against South Africa forces Paul's employer into liquidation. Lorette and Paul lose their car and fall behind on their house payments. Paul cannot find work.

        1990
He finds grim employment in a bank doing a job he finds boring and repetitive. He paints at night, dark and shadowy pictures that relieve him of some of his unhappiness. He writes a smart card system.

        1992
In December Paul and Lorette take their first trip overseas, to Italy. He is dumbstruck by the richness of Florence's art, in particular Michelangelo's sculpture of David. He leaves Florence with a commitment to developing his own work and practising it on a full-time basis.

        1994
Paul paints 'Two my Friends' on a piece of chipboard. Paul and Lorette travel to Paris and Paul studies a group of sculptures made of polyurethane foam, metal drums and plastic in a sculpture garden behind the Louvre. The crudeness and playfulness of these abstract forms resonate with Paul, and he goes back to South Africa with a renewed excitement about his own sculpture. He works in his garage, making sculptures from found materials, mostly plastic. He enters three sculptures into a competition and wins first prize for Best Artist with No Formal Training at the Association of Arts, Bellville, Cape Town. This success inspires Paul. Lorette falls pregnant, and the couple decide to move to Cape Town in the near future.

        1995
On 6 February Paul and Lorette's daughter, Danielle, is born. In October the family moves to their current abode in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Paul wants to study art full time, but his commitments do not allow it. The soft ware product he had developed does not sell in the Cape. Lorette supports the family while Paul windsurfs dur ing the day and paints at night.

        1996
In the new house, Paul for the first time has his own studio, 'a space dedicated to creating art'. It measures 3 m x 1 m. Paul starts using a new medium, a thick industrial concrete filler into which he scratches lines and images. This impasto technique, which he had first seen in Italy, becomes intrinsic to Paul's style. The depth, texture and quality of the line are reminiscent of sculpture. He keeps his PC in the studio, and this space becomes a 'nerve-centre' from which he connects to the art world of Europe via the Internet.

        1997
Paul sells his first paintings locally. He creates his own website, PlanetPaul, and loads five portraits onto it. The paintings are spotted by a gallery owner in Paris, and Paul is invited to present a solo exhibition of twenty-five paintings there in March 1998. He makes the most of this break and sees the opportunity to devote himself solely to art. He exhibits in a group exhibition at Groot Constantia Art Gallery, Cape Town. On 2 September Paul and Lorette's son, Joshua, is born.

        1998
Paul's paintings are exhibited in a number of international and local exhibitions, which generates interest amongst the local media. He appears on CNN's International Art Club and is featured prominently in a week-long series devoted to South Africa. His website begins to receive hits from around the globe. His first solo exhibition in Paris, 'Visitors from PlanetPaul', is a major success. While in Paris, Paul spends hours studying the bronzes of Picasso and other artists of the period. Back in South Africa, he creates his first bronzes, called Ralph and Little Ralph, and his longstanding interest in and love for sculpture finally come to the fore. In October he has his first local solo exhibition, 'Future Fantastic', at Bang the Gallery, Cape Town, which includes paintings as well as one of the Ralph bronzes.

        1999
Paul continues to exhibit his work both locally and internationally, including shows in Edinburgh and Moscow. Corporates including Vodacom and IBM both show interest and buy some of Paul's paintings. Paul creates and shows his short film video installation ''Origins of Modern Human: Channel Surfing' at The Liberman Room, during the 'Softserve' exhibition, in the South African National Gallery, Cape Town.

        2000
Paul contributes to the '70 over 2000' exhibition, which opens in London and tours fourteen countries. Paul's participation in this exhibition, along with the cream of Europe's avant-garde artists, is impressive, considering that Professor Demarco sees the work of thousands of artists every month. This is followed with one solo and one group exhibition in Cape Town, as well as exhibitions in Holland and London. Paul creates a series of painted wooden sculptures.

        2001
Paul's work appears at the Holland Art Fair in The Hague and in two solo exhibitions, one in Cape Town, one in Holland. He creates a number of sculptures in found steel, as well as a series of bronzes that focus on the whole human figure. He is nominated for the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Sculpture 2002. He is also nominated to exhibit works at the Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art in December 2001, by Professor John T. Spike, the director of the festival. He wins a fifth place medal in the sculpture section, competing against over 600 artists.

        2002
Two of Paul's paintings trade at Sotheby's at well over the reserve price. Christiaan Barnard hosts a solo exhibition of Paul's latest sculptures and paintings, in Johannesburg. Paul exhibits on the American continent for the first time - at the Toronto International Art Fair. Paul and Lorette go to Zanzibar for a holiday. Paul is fascinated by the dhows sailing in and out of the harbour, and makes a number of sketches. On his return he creates a series of bronze sculptures from wire armatures filled with a solid compound. The shapes and lines of these figures are reminiscent of the sails of the dhows, and bring a new element to Paul's painting and sculpture.

        2003
Paul experiments with different media and his palette becomes richer, as he adds subdued, grainy nuances to his signature strong primary colours. Lorette joins the PlanetPaul team fulltime and much of the year is taken up with building a new studio. For the first time Paul has a bright, airy space to work in. Paul starts painting with groups of children at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town, becoming a 'Champion of the Children' of the Children's Hospital Trust. He donates work for the annual art auction ball, which fundraises for the hospital.

        2004
Paul has his first solo exhibition in New York, curated by Kóan Jeff Baysa, whom he had met over the Internet in 1999. The exhibition is reviewed in NY Arts Magazine, and the opening of the exhibition is featured in Arts and Antiques Magazine. He also has a solo show in Holland. He does a series of works on paper, in mixed media. They feature a simple stick figure drawn with childlike simplicity, with an upturned 'L' foot, which becomes an important part of Paul's artistic 'alphabet'.

        2005
Paul has a successful exhibition at the Erdmann Contemporary in Cape Town including works on paper and paintings, as well as painted sculptures made from resin and fibreglass. He also spends a week working at the Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City, creating a series of paintings made from paper pulp to which a colour mixture is applied. Paul creates the Purple Hominid mural at the Cradle of Humankind in Sterkfontein, South Africa. His paintings reflect a new complexity, with multiple figures brought together in different perspectives in the picture plane.

        2006
Paul exhibits the series of paper pulp paintings at the Erdmann Contemporary in Cape Town. He presents new works including monumental sculptural pieces at a solo exhibition in Johannesburg. These sculptures represent the culmination and expression of drawing, painting and sculptural techniques that he has developed over many years. His ten years as a professional artist are showcased in a 160-page book, and in a DVD. The exhibition also features a short animation film in collaboration with Josie Borain and Iain Anderson. In October Paul returns to the Dieu Donné Papermill, to explore the next generation of paper works.

© Sarah McCarthy

b i o g r a p h y
by Brandon de Kock

A highly acclaimed art historian remarked during a solo exhibition in Paris, "forget his great use of colour, forget the boldness, forget the naďve portraits - it is all in the line. He must have been seeing the world like this from when he was two years old." He had crashed into planetpaul - a strange and wonderful world inhabited by a 34yr old South African artist who was born in Johannesburg and is currently based in Hout Bay, Cape Town. There, in the peaceful chaos of his studio, he plots the overthrow of his own mind, producing an enormous body of work that is capturing the imagination of the global art- loving community public and bringing a new vitality to art itself. Paul du Toit has always seen pictures in the world around him, from a youthf ul self-guided tour through realis m to the present colourful and striking abstractions which fill his mind, his canvasses and the walls of art lovers around the world.

The flight to planetpaul, however has been anything but conventional. Up until 1997, he was an artist who made a living as a software develo per in the computer industry. With no formal training or associations, he found it almost impossible to break into the notoriously regulated South African art scene and realised that it was going to be a long, slow trip ?.unless he could make up his own set of rules. Armed with a strong belief that artists of the future must incorporate technology into their repertoire, he combined his knowledge of computers and the Internet with his artistic talent and set up his own electronic portfolio on the web called www.planetpaul.co.za.

Knowing how to 'market' the site on the net gave him the edge he needed to avoid standing in a never-ending queue and it wasn't long before the power of the global community kicked in. Within a year, he had secured numerous exhibitions all around the world including a high profile solo show at a Parisian Gallery opposite the Picasso Museum! In March '98, just prior to the Paris showing, CNN's weekly International Art Club focused on South Africa. Apart from being interviewed as one of the featured artists, Paul du Toit had the pleasure of seeing his art used in all the advertisements for South Africa week. For him it was yet another example of the liberating power of multimedia, but more importantly, it represented an opportunity to increase planetpaul tourism by about 180 million visitors. Paul's show, The planets Align, in April 1999 at Giraffe House on the Cen turion Estate proved the commercial viability of his work with larger pieces virtually selling out to private collectors and South African Corporates IBM and Vodacom collectively purchasing 30 of his paintings for their head offices in Johannesburg. The show was brilliantly received, eventually leading to Paul being hailed as a 'revolutionary artist' by M-Net's prime time television show, Front Row. Through a combination of successful exhibitions, Paul du Toit has introduced art industries from all over the world to his world. And he's only just getting going!

Paul describes himself as a "Protean monster" someone who deliberately and randomly shifts the goalposts of visual creation. In short, just when you think you know what's going on, the whole picture changes! The denatured faces and forms that are characteristic of modern art are fully present in Paul's art and although his mission is to fracture visual expectations, he remains true at all times to two important principles: perspective and balanced proportion. Reminiscent of Picasso, with seemingly important objects being depicted in an unconventional manner using clearly defined outlines, Paul's work exudes a positive energy that has captured the imagination of the media and public alike and attracted the attention of collectors from around the world.

© 99 Brandon de Kock

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