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Christiaan Conradie
Christiaan Conradie (born in 1984, age 37) is a contemporary African artist. He experiences and focuses on concrete spheres within the arts. His art is thought as a bridge that unites two opposite worlds that, put together, convey vitality, reason and sensitivity. He uses oil, watercolour, objects and lights amongst other materials. He uses them as devices that allow him to transit between two worlds: the rational and the intuitive. He considers his work as a space where the opposite reunites. As he puts extreme patience and precision into the crafting of his works, to thoroughly examine his human characters and to enjoy the rational, measured side of his works.

Website: http://www.christiaanconradie.com/

Instagram: @christiaanconradie

Life and Education
Christiaan Conradie was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. At the age of three his family relocated to the coastal city of Cape Town and it didn’t take him long to develop a deep love for the ocean as he grew up surfing around the beautiful beaches of the Cape peninsula. He started painting at a young age and first began exhibiting in local galleries at the age of 19 whilst studying art direction and design. After a 2 year stint in advertising he left the industry behind to focus on his painting. Christiaan has since exhibited internationally including a solo show in Barcelona, Spain in 2012 and his work is housed in private collections worldwide. Surfing, travel and music is what inspires him most. He is currently based in Mexico City, and true to his character is unsure of how long he’ll be there for. “I’m not sure which way the wind might blow me, but for now I’m enjoying all the opportunities and the people here in Mexico, I just need to get down beach.” He is part of the RVCA Artist Network Program (ANP) which aims to showcase the talent of accomplished as well as unknown artists who inspire new generations.

Career
Christiaan Conradie remains faithful to his own truth and encounter with the arts. His work relies on a creative, and to the viewer, sensitizing process that turns his ideas into creation. The ocean, surfing, music and his admiration for excellence in various creative fields are part of the experience that crafts his ideas and makes them tangible. His creative output is manifested in various forms: urban art, photography, drawing, installation, but above all, painting.

After drawing and abstraction, Christiaan Conradie has chosen, in recent years, to turn mainly to figurative painting and mixed media. His last series are the result of chance encounters since his arrival in Mexico City. He painted many portraits in this way, completely isolating the bodies from their environment: only faces, hands, sometimes animals and a few abstract motifs here and there.

Christiaan Conradie seeks above all to paint characters who marked her, without scene or decoration, by proposing only a few elements on her white canvases. For him, the hyperrealism of his paintings is enough to transcribe these encounters and memories to keep only the essential.

This is how some of his paintings take on a whole new dimension thanks to the different objects he then adds. Christiaan Conradie leaves the framework of painting to make his work ever more alive and interactive.

Notable Moments
2010 - Group Show, Painting and Performance, Riebeeck Kasteel, South Africa

2010 - Principal Painter in Andrew Putter’s ‘Sketch Assembly 1’, Cape Town, South Africa

2012 - Group Show, Salon 91 - ‘Impression: Sunset’, Cape Town, South Africa

2012 - Group Show, Tjing Tjing Exchange - ‘A group show’, Cape Town, South Africa

2012 Casa Verdi, ‘Los otros y Anne’, Barcelona, Spain 2014 - Celaya Brothers Gallery, ´This is the wind and this is the breeze´, México City, México

2014 - Rust en Vrede Gallery - ‘Love before breakfast’, Cape Town, South Africa

2015 - RVCA Gallery, San Francisco, USA

2016 The Solo Project, Basel, Switzerland Art New York, NY, USA YIA #6, Bruxelles, Belgium Scope New-York, NY, USA Art Wynwood, Miami, USA Art PalmBeach, Miami, USA 2021 - 131 A Gallery - 'Against a narrow heart', Cape Town, South Africa

Reference
•	Christiaan, Conradie. “55 Bellechasse: Conradie Christiaan.” Www.55bellechasse.Com, 2016, http://www.55bellechasse.com/artist-profil/66/Conradie-Christiaan.html.

•	Conradie, Christiaan. “Christiaan Conradie.” 131 A Gallery, 2021, https://www.131agallery.com/all-artworks/christiaan-conradie.

•	“This Is the Wind &amp; This Is the Breeze.” Edited by Celaya Brothers Gallery, CBG, 2 Oct.2014, http://www.celayabrothersgallery.com/this-is-the-wind-this-is-the-breeze

•	Brilus, Anya, et al. “Beauty in Age: Christiaan Conradie's 'against a Narrow Heart'.” ArtThrob, 6 Oct. 2021, https://artthrob.co.za/2021/06/10/beauty-in-age-christiaan-conradies-against-a-narrow-heart/.

•	Douw, Sven. “Ataraxia Revisited: Sven Christian Reflects on the Work of Christiaan Conradie.” Art Africa Magazine, Douw Https://Artafricamagazine.org/Wp-Content/Uploads/2018/02/ART-AFRICA-LOGO-300x62.Png, 12 May 2021, https://artafricamagazine.org/ataraxia-revisited-sven-christian-reflects-on-the-work-of-christiaan-conradie/.