Fields of Gold

A painting inspired by the quiet vastness of the Klein Karoo

Every artist eventually faces the same moment — the blank canvas.

For some, that moment is filled with complete freedom. There are painters who can begin with nothing more than an empty surface and bring an entire world into existence purely from imagination. Others possess the remarkable ability to replicate a photograph so precisely that the painting becomes almost indistinguishable from the original.

I'll be honest — I don't fall into either of those categories.

Perhaps because my journey began with photography, I've never had the desire to reproduce a photograph exactly as it is. The camera already does that perfectly well. What draws me in is the space between memory, experience, and interpretation — that place where a scene begins to evolve beyond what the lens originally captured.

For me, photography has always been a starting point rather than a destination.

Over many years of photographing landscapes, I've built up large archives of images. Some were taken in perfect conditions and became part of a finished body of work almost immediately. But others — images that hold something special, perhaps a strong composition or a quality of light — don't quite make it to that final stage. A small element that doesn't work. A moment that wasn't fully there.

These images are rarely discarded. Instead, they sit quietly in the archive, waiting.

And it's often years later, when I come back to them, that I rediscover not only the photograph itself but the full experience that surrounded it. Strangely, even when the emotional intensity of that day has softened with time, the memory of the place remains vivid. The feeling of wind on my skin. The warmth of late afternoon light. The scent of dry earth and open veld.

The photograph becomes a doorway back into that moment.

It's from that place that Fields of Gold was born.

The Landscape That Inspired the Painting

This painting draws its inspiration from the countryside surrounding Montagu in the Western Cape — a region that sits at the entrance to the Klein Karoo.

If you've ever driven through Montagu, you'll know that the town itself lies tucked deep within the folds of the Langeberg mountain range. Approaching it through the narrow canyon feels almost like entering a hidden valley. But once you pass beyond the town and venture further into the countryside — toward Barrydale, the Koo Valley, or along the winding gravel roads that branch away from the main routes — the landscape changes dramatically.

The space opens up.

The terrain slowly shifts from fertile farming valleys into the semi-arid character of the Klein Karoo — ochres, browns, dusty golds, and soft earth tones stretching toward distant mountain ranges.

It's a place of incredible quiet.

My family and I have spent a great deal of time in this region over the past several years. Our gallery is located at the Blouvines District in Montagu — a beautiful wine and art destination where visitors can experience wine tasting alongside a curated selection of artworks. The wines carry art labels we've created, allowing visitors to take a little piece of that connection home with them.

Because of this, we often travel through the surrounding countryside — sometimes as a family for pleasure, and at other times specifically in search of photographic inspiration.

When I'm out photographing, those early-morning or late-afternoon drives are usually done either on my own or with my daughter, Samantha Lee Osner, who is herself a photographer and fellow artist. And it's often during those quiet drives that unexpected scenes reveal themselves.

A gravel road turning through an open gate.

A windmill slowly turning above a small farm cottage.

A valley opening unexpectedly between distant mountain ridges.

These moments stay with you.

The Colours of the Karoo

One of the most striking things about the Klein Karoo is its colour palette.

Unlike the lush agricultural regions of the broader Western Cape, the Karoo carries a far more restrained range of tones. Vast areas covered in fynbos and semi-arid vegetation produce ochres, browns, and dusty golds rather than the deep greens of more fertile landscapes.

It's a colour language that speaks of resilience.

When painting Fields of Gold, I consciously resisted the temptation to introduce the brighter greens and yellows we might associate with farmland. Instead, I chose to stay faithful to the region's emotional experience — those muted earth tones that define the Karoo's character.

To reinforce this feeling, I applied subtle tonal washes over the final painting, allowing the landscape to settle into warmer, more weathered hues.

The result is less about depicting one specific farm and more about capturing the atmosphere of the region itself.

Light That Belongs to Different Moments

One of the real advantages of working across both photography and painting is the freedom to combine experiences from different moments into a single scene.

The Langeberg Mountains that frame this landscape are particularly beautiful in the early morning light. As the sun rises in the east, warm tones brush across the ridges, creating pockets of glowing colour along the slopes.

Yet the famous blue mountains of the Montagu area — which inspired the name Bloupunt — appear most dramatically in the late afternoon. As the sun drops behind the ranges, large areas fall into shade, and the distant mountains take on a subtle blue hue.

In reality, those two lighting experiences don't happen at the same time.

But painting allows the artist to bring them together.

In Fields of Gold, the warmth of early morning light on the mountains merges with the cooler blue tones of distant ranges — combining memories from different times of day into a single, harmonious moment.

The Open Gate

One detail that continually fascinates me while travelling through the Karoo countryside is the number of farm gates that stand wide open.

There's something deeply symbolic about that.

Rather than forming a barrier, the open gate seems to invite exploration — to suggest that the road ahead is part of the journey, not something to be kept at a distance. As a photographer, I've always struggled to resist the temptation of an open gate. If there's a road leading beyond it, I almost always feel compelled to follow it.

That urge — to move beyond the obvious, to allow a place to reveal itself slowly — has shaped not only the way I photograph, but the way I experience landscape itself.

I speak more about this in my YouTube video, Fine Art Photography is About Much More Than What We See, where I reflect on photography as something deeper than simply taking a picture. It's about memory, connection, and the experiences that stay with us long after the shutter has closed. In the video, I also share the story of the day I finally met my match after driving through a gate without asking permission first.

In this painting, the road passes directly through just such a gate — guiding the viewer's eye into the landscape and toward the homestead beyond.

The Human Presence

Landscapes often feel more powerful when they carry a subtle trace of human presence.

While composing the painting, I felt the scene needed a figure — not to dominate the image, but simply to remind us that someone lives within this quiet space.

Rather than placing a person near the homestead, I chose to include a solitary cyclist travelling along the road. This small figure represents the quiet lives of the people who inhabit these landscapes every day — farmers, workers, and families who live within the rhythm of this remarkable countryside.

Windmills and Water

No Karoo farm scene would feel complete without a windmill.

Across the region, these iconic structures have been pumping water from underground sources for generations. Many of them are old and weathered, yet they continue to stand as quiet symbols of life in this semi-arid landscape.

At one stage, I briefly considered leaving the windmill out of the painting — worried it might feel too predictable.

But very quickly, I realised its absence would feel unnatural. The windmill belongs here.

Photography as a Tool for Art

Although Fields of Gold is a painting, its origins lie in many years of photographic exploration.

Various elements of this scene were inspired by photographs taken throughout the Montagu and Koo Valley region over several years — images of the mountains, the roads, the farm structures, and the quiet rhythm of rural life.

Painting allowed me to draw from these memories and visual fragments, assembling them into a scene that reflects not just what was seen, but what was felt.

In that sense, the camera becomes simply another tool on the artist's workbench. Sometimes it captures the final artwork directly. At other times, it provides the foundation for mixed media or painterly interpretation. And occasionally, as with this painting, it acts as a bridge between experience and imagination.

A good example of this is Majestic Homestead — a panoramic photograph taken in the Koo Mountain Range that remains a pure work of art in its own right, yet also speaks to how certain scenes stay with us and continue to inspire new directions. In another instance, a client fell in love with one of my photographs of a homestead and wanted to experience it as a painting. I was commissioned to paint that scene at over three metres wide — staying faithful to the original composition while allowing the painted surface to bring a different emotional quality to the work.

That, to me, is part of the beauty of working across photography, mixed media, and painting. The camera is not in competition with the brush. It is simply another instrument through which art can begin.

A Painting Born from Years of Memory

Fields of Gold is not the result of a single moment.

It is the accumulation of many experiences — early morning drives, quiet gravel roads, conversations with farmers, and the vast open spaces of the Klein Karoo.

It represents the feeling of standing within a landscape where the world seems to slow down.

A place where the wind moves gently across golden fields.

A place of quiet.

Viewing the Painting

The original painting of 'Fields of Gold' measures 100 cm × 76 cm and was created using acrylic paint applied with both palette knife and brush, finished with subtle tonal washes.

The original artwork is currently on exhibition at our Osner Art Gallery in Hout Bay, Cape Town.

If you're visiting Cape Town, I'd strongly encourage you to experience it in person. When working with paint, texture plays an important role in the artwork, and photographs of a painting can never fully capture the depth and character of the surface.

A celebration print edition will also be released and will be available through our countryside galleries:

Osner Gallery Napier

Blouvines District Gallery, Montagu

If you happen to be visiting any of these areas during March 2026, please do pop in and experience the work in person.