Majesty

SUE MAAS

I was born in 1949 in Mutare, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the second child of eight children I spent a large portion of my early years on the family farm exploring the bush collecting anything from wonderfully colored spiders to brilliantly decorated butterflies along with anything else strange and wonderful that captured my attention.

Born to parents who were both creative, my mother an accomplished artist and sculptor, and my father an inventive farmer with an insatiable appetite for the outdoors (especially camping and fishing). A trait I picked up at an early age.
People have often asked me where I get my inspiration.
My reply is “it’s in my blood’!

When we children were around nine years old (supposedly ‘mature’ enough!) we were granted the great privilege of being allowed to accompany our dad, along with siblings and cousins on the ‘dads’ annual get-away, a hunting/fishing trip into Mozambique to a camp that we set up on the banks of a river in Mozambique.
A wonderful week followed - fishing, swimming and hunting ‘for the pot’, exploring and discovering new places along the river banks.
It was at this time that I really felt that I wanted to draw and paint and a great love for the bush was born.

After completing my schooling I was enrolled at the Bulawayo Art College where I completed a three year diploma course as a commercial artist, now referred to as a graphic artist. On leaving Art School I married the love of my life, Frik Maas who I began to date at the tender age of 16 in my last year of high school. We started off our lifelong adventure together in neighboring Mozambique where my family had a farm.

I have been incredibly blessed to have been able to pursue my love for creating and painting both as a graphic artist, a hand painted textile designer, and now a fulltime wildlife artist as my husband and I and our two children spent most of our 47 years of married life in the safari business, farming in Zimbabwe or working in remote areas. We have also lived and worked in not only Zimbabwe and Mozambique but also Lesotho and South Africa, moving more times than I care to remember, but in each place being blessed with amazing experiences, I could write a book about our adventures! Sadly my beloved husband passed away in 2016 whilst we were living in Stellenbosch and I now reside in Betty’s Bay, in the Western Cape of South Africa.

I am so aware that my real inspiration comes from my Maker through whom all things were made and from whom I draw all my direction and guidance.
My love for colors, shapes, textures, moods and atmospheres are gleaned from the rich resources of African life in all its amazing and wonderful diversity.

In ending I would like to say that I try to capture just a small amount of the beauty I see around me on the canvases I paint and I hope to be able to share that with the viewer of my work.
My desire is also to create an awareness of the natural world and to impart the importance of preserving life in all its aspects through responsible management and a tolerance for those things that are different.

I believe absolutely that:

‘Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.’ (John 1: 3, 4.)