Coast & Sea

Pamela Cooper paints from Kommetjie, on the Cape peninsula, and the places arrive under their own names: Witsand is a real stretch of Cape coast rather than an invented title.

Her method is consistent across all of them. She keeps the tonal range narrow, works the sky in dry broken layers so the weave of the canvas keeps showing through, then lays the foreground on almost flat. That is why these stay quiet even when the sky is doing something dramatic.

Artur Rama's Solitary is a weatherboard cottage behind dune grass with the sea flat behind it, the boards painted silver-grey and dry so that the roof carries the only strong colour in the picture. Standing Tall puts a gull on a rope-bound mooring post, still, with the surf broken into loose dry strokes behind it.

Michele Rama's Quiet sunset is the loudest thing she paints on a coast: a half sun on a black horizon line in hot pink, orange, yellow and lilac, every brush mark left visible.

More than one coastline is in here, and they are painted in very different weather.