Painting up a Storm in the Karoo

Meet Rudolph Clench, who will sit in front of your house for three hours and produce a painting of it that would take lesser artists days and days to complete.

He’s been travelling the Karoo of late, from town to town, painting many of the classic old houses and farmsteads of the Heartland.

“You could write books about the places that car has taken me,” he says, pointing at his road-weary old Jetta. “And it still goes like the clappers.”

Rudolph Clench, who hails from Oudtshoorn, has been travelling up and down all the major southern country roads, from the Garden Route to the Little Karoo to the N7 on the West Coast, painting homes and farms along the way. He’s currently working in the Cradock area.

Jules spotted Rudolph down Naested Street, sketching one of the few mansions in town. She commissioned him right there and then to paint our spot.

And there he is, busy on Number 6, the one with the ‘sunrise gates’. He should have been here last night when the sky went purple and the stormlight fell over Cradock like a dark blessing.

But it was all noise and thunder. So perhaps tonight, the rains will fall. And Rudolph will be out in the street, under a brolly, painting our neighbours’ place. Not bad, for R700 a pop…

Rudolph Clench – Artist on the Move – Tel: +27 (0) 82 530 7941

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