Bushmen - ROCK CONCERT

This is a lively coming together of performers and spectators. The figures are from a lively dance scene found in caves near Jamestown, Eastern Cape which was described by Batiss as "the valley of art".

US$65 each, including postage
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Bushmen - RAINDANCE

A shovel-snouted lizard performs a dance on a parched river bed. This is a present-day allegory of the rain dance once performed by the little people in the desert.

US$65 each, including postage
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Bushmen - ZEBRA CROSSING

In the past, the Bushman would often witness the mass migration of zebra - this is "an hallucination of a long past experience".

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Says Nola, "Over the past 10 years, as if compelled by an inner force I have travelled extensively to the lands on which the "Harmless People" once roamed for thousands of years. They lived in harmony with themselves and their environment with a deep-rooted respect and wonder at their surroundings, which they truly understood.

I researched and studied their art from the Tsodilo hills, to the Brandberg and the Drakensberg and found myself drawn to their lifestyle so sensitively portrayed in their artistry. This covers most of their activities from the birth of a baby, hunting, to their dream-like spirituality steeped in their respect for Nature and its bounty with no wish to conquer or subdue it!

When gazing in wonder at their pictorial history I was left with a sense of loss for our culture and civilization, which ruthlessly destroyed them without trying to understand them.

Recently, near Tsumke in Bushmanland, I came across some of the pitiful remains of these once proud people. In spite of their tragedy they still retained their friendly nature and happy disposition. This together with their past history inspired me to portray in my own work the immense destruction of the African animals and these people who protected them for thousands of years. So much life has turned into stone that even their paintings are tearing themselves off the rocks. They have no option but to try and relive their dancing and dream-like visions as a last tribute before disappearing into the ether.

Just like the deep-rooted spiritual side of the Bushman lives on in their paintings, I have tried to pay my own tribute to their obvious love so that even in their demise the viewer can possibly smile. Their laughter still echoes in the hills and caves if you care to listen."

In a letter of admiration of Nola’s work to Leonard Schneider, the well-known author, Sir Laurens van der Post wrote:

“I am most grateful to you for drawing my attention to the work of so unusual and, I think, considerable an artist as Nola Muller. I am so sad that I am so far away and cannot come to see your exhibition, but perhaps when I come to South Africa again, which I hope to fairly early next year, I could let you know and see her work then? Would you please tell the artist how much I appreciated her work. I like also the sorts of things that she says about the Bushmen and their art, and picks up what I think is the essence of the Bushman and his contribution to life - his love of life in all its manifestations, and its indestructible sweetness that comes out in his irrepressible laughter.

I remember accounts from the Bleek who knew him when he was working, apparently doomed, on the breakwater in the Cape, which was the heaviest punishment you could have inflicted on him other than hanging. All the people who had to work there had a look of doom and defeat on their faces but, however, now and then something would inspire the unquenchable joy of life and a Bushman laugh would ring across the harbour.

Yours sincerely,
Sir Laurens van der Post”