Award-winning artist and animator now a proud Unisa alumnus

It is not often that someone who has been an object of study becomes the subject behind his own study as in the case of award-winning visual artist and animator, Diek Grobler, who recently received a PhD in Art at Unisa.

Dr Diek Grobler

In 2011, Grobler was the object of study of another Unisa PhD student, Jorike Langerman, who wrote her dissertation on "Diek Grobler: an artist’s monograph with interactive catalogue". The title of Grobler’s practice-driven PhD dissertation is “Narrative strategies in the creation of animated poetry-films”. He produced two animated poetry films ("Parys Suite" with poems by Carina van der Walt and music by Mart-Marie Snyman, and "Mon Pays," a poem by Mauritanian poet and academic Ousmane Moussa Diagana with music by Laurinda Hofmeyer). These films can be viewed at http://diekgrobler.co.za/.

His supervisor was Professor Elfriede Dreyer, a professor extraordinarius in the Department of Art and Music, herself an illustrious academic, gallerist and artist.

Grobler works in a variety of media and disciplines, such as sculpting, painting, illustration, scraperboard, performance art, and, more recently, animation. His company, Fopspeen Moving Pictures, has produced a few short animations which won several awards. In 2006 he received a merit award for New Media at the Ekurhuleni Fine Art Awards for his animation film, “Little Bang.” This was followed by two awards for “Agenda” in 2007, namely a SAFTA award for best animation in a short film as well as the Africala Online Short Film Award in Mexico.

In 2008 his film “Het Vogeltjes ABC” won three awards: Best Animated Film for Children at the Teheran International animation festival, Iran, KROK International animation festival, Ukraine, and Tindirindis International animation festival, Lithuania.

In 2010 he wrote and directed “Uit die Bloute”, an animated series for kykNET, while planning for a series of 24 Afrikaans poetry films for which he served as director (and animator for two films) produced by the ATKV and published as Filmverse 1 and Filmverse 2. Filmverse 2 was translated into English, Zulu and Sotho. Under his directorship some of these poetry films achieved great success and garnered awards, amongst others the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for Best First Film by Naomi van Niekerk for “An ordinary blue Monday” (a poem by Jean Goosen) at the Annecy 2016 Animation Festival.

In 2015 Grobler participated in the Venice Biennale in Italy with an animated film, “Stick in the Mud.” In 2017 he finished a project he started to initiate, direct and animate in 2013: “Please frog, just one sip.” It is a drawn animation of 10 minutes for which he received a special award at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival in 2017. The film “Mon Pays” has so far been shortlisted for the 2018 Weimar Poetry Film Prize (Weimar, Germany), the 2018 Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition award (Cork, Ireland) and Poetry Film Live’s Film Poetry Competition award (UK) in 2019.

Grobler has exhibited professionally since 1988 in various galleries, and at events and arts festivals such as Woordfees, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) and Inniebos Kunstefees. He has also explored successfully the concept of online exhibitions. His last one was in 2020. Called “Postcards from Lazaretto”, it consisted of an online exhibition of postcard-sized works posted daily on Facebook. The exhibition lasted 100 days from the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. Covid-19 also provided the impetus for a three-part animation film (“Inhale”, “Exhale” and “Breathe”) on the effects of Covid-19 on people.

In the discipline of visual arts, he won a merit award for Sculpture in the New Signatures Competition in 1988, and in 1993 and 1995 another merit award in the Volkskas Atelier Competition. In 2003 he was the South African Graphic Arts winner of the International Olympic Committee Art Competition. He was the recipient of a gold medal for painting at the International Delphic Games, Kuching, Malaysia, in 2005.

Early in his career, he participated in several performances at festivals. He and his troupe won at a KKNK festival in 1999 the De Kat Herrie-award for “Die Lang Pad na Ninevé” and “Jong Afrikaner Anargiste” project.

He has illustrated various books (including 40 children’s books) since 1994, and created animations for various vocal artists (Jannie du Toit, Jak de Priester, Coenie de Villiers and Karin Hougaard, to name but a few).

He obtained a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1996. His works found their way into private collections in South Africa and Europe, and are also in the collections of the following institutions: Pretoria Art Museum, Tatham Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, ABSA collection, Sasol Art Collection, Telkom Collection, Sanlam Collection, Unisa Collection, Gauteng Legislature and Rand Merchant Bank Collection.

* By Professor Gerrie Snyman, Unisa Department of Bible and Ancient Studies