I have had an everlasting interest in fine arts, in particular in paintings of impressionists, post-impressionists and related trends like fauvism, pointillism and surrealism. In the late eighties I also developed a great interest in jigsaw puzzles. Not only an interest but when the puzzle was in the process of being assembled, I felt sort of addicted to the colourful little pieces. At a certain stage, I found that it is more interesting to make a puzzle without the original picture. The addiction to jigsaw puzzles lasted until 1994 when I found in the Mineral World shop in Simonstown (Cape Town) patterns for designing pictures from miniature gemstones. I purchased such a pattern together with pre-selected gemstones and brought my little treasure back home to Bloemfontein.

This was the beginning of my gemstone adventure.

Most of the ideas for my gemstone mosaics/pictures/paintings are based on paintings, photographs (mainly my own photographs), pictures that I find in books, museums, magazines, calendars and first of all in nature. Most of the originals may hardly be recognised since they mainly serve as an idea. Whenever I look at something, I try to imagine how it would look when reflected in a gemstone painting.

From 1994 until July 2005, I displayed my paintings only at my home. They were never on public display with one exception when 2 of them were presented at an art exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein. In 2005 I started feeling more and more pressure from my family and friends to not only display my work at my home, but to exhibit wider. The time had come and I approached the owner of a gallery of crystals and gemstones in Clarens, Graham Rodin. He accepted the paintings for exhibition without any hesitation. Since then the paintings have been exhibited at the art galleries in Bloemfontein (Bovidian) and Hogsback (The Edge) as well as at the National Art Festival in Grahamstown, 2006.

My Gemstone Paintings are not the only form of art that carries this name. Gemstone paintings are also a traditional art form in Rajasthan, India. However, the two art forms differ to a great extent. The Indian paintings are made of ground gemstone powder that is pasted on the back of glass sheet (see Nafees Elements, unique gifts and décor), whereas  I choose each tiny gemstone from a collection of thousands of polished gemstones. At present I have about 50 different gemstone species at home. Each kind has hundreds of stones and you cannot find 2 identical stones in colour and shape. It is absolutely fascinating! It takes a long time to complete a gemstone painting. The time depends on the composition of the painting as well. The small, intricate details take much longer than building a sky. I estimate that excluding intricate details I can paste 50 to 100 gemstones per hour. The pasting takes less time than finding a suitable stone.