Danielle Malherbe

The motif of the swimming pool provides a versatile metaphor for exploring water's rich symbolic value as the Elixir of life, the Font, the source of all life, and its aptness as a vehicle for delving into the murky and inarticulate realms of emotion. Water lends itself to comparisons with the enigmatic workings of the unconscious and the impulses of the physical body. The swimming pool, a contained, man-made body of water, becomes a contemporary interpretation of the fons et origo at the centre of paradise, a regenerative, curative and purifying sacred spring.
The suburban swimming pool, usually associated with children splashing and laughing is depicted in this group of paintings as a vacated and silent space, evoking a mood of introspective contemplation and at times even disquiet.

Malherbe completed a Diploma in Fine Art at Durban Technikon with Drawing and Painting majors in 1988. She went on to study towards a Higher Diploma in Fine Art, which she completed at the end of 1989. While living in Durban, she worked as a private painting and drawing tutor for adult students, and as an arts and crafts teacher to groups of children until 1997, when she relocated to Pretoria. Malherbe has continued with this form of self-employment while based in Pretoria. In December 2015 she completed her M.Tech Fine Art at Tshwane University of Technology, presenting a dissertation, 'The pool motif in selected South African Arcadian paintings' and an exhibition of twelve paintings of the suburban swimming pool.
Since the completion of her M Tech degree, Malherbe has been appointed as a support tutor teaching painting to second and third year Fine Arts students at TUT, and teaches drawing to first and second year Visual Arts students at UP.

Malherbe has participated in various exhibitions and competitions since 1991, including the 1991 Natal New Signatures Competition, when she received the first prize. She was selected for the national exhibition of the Volkskas Competition in 1993 and 1997, was a finalist in the 1999 Absa Atelier Competition and selected for the national exhibition for the 2000 and 2002 Absa Atelier Competition as well as for the 2015 Sasol New Signatures Competition.