RN338 - Ixopo based "Sand Painitng Artist" Mat Lourens' Garratt painting

While up in Ixopo Denis Usher and Andy Selfe visited with an artist friend who is based there, Mat Lourens.
Mat has perfected a very unique technique of "sand painting". He has done a picture of a steam train on the line near Creighton. It is absolutely beautiful and the medium he uses makes the picture come alive. The picture really does not do the painting the justice that it deserves. These paintings are unique in that Mat is the only person in the world that does them in this way.

The picture is done completely without any paint and only undyed mineral sand is used.
Mat paints with a special glue, which will not discolour or crack and then sprinkles the necessary colour of sand over that area and when dry, removes the excess. He developed the technique for Richards Bay Minerals to do a mural for their foyer 15 years ago, using their products instead of paint. So these are valuable strategic metals mined from the beach at Richards Bay.

This painting is virtually indestructable!

Unfortunately this image does not really show it to its full advantage, because the normal paintings have their colour on the surface whereas this has its colour within the translucent grain so with a strong light the colour comes from within the grain giving a tremendous 3D effect.
This is just a small file to facilitate downloading but should be interested in a larger file or a file showing the sequence, Mat would be glad to send it to you. Any further info would also be gladly sent to you. It may also be of interest to view Mat’s website at www.matlouwrens.co.za
You can contact Mat at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.