Playing Oil on Canvas by Cornelie Wolff

Playing Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 40 cm x 54 cm  x 4 cm

Medium: Oil

Step into a world of pure imagination with Cornelie Wolff’s original oil on canvas painting, ‘Playing’. This isn’t just a picture of children; it’s an energetic, abstract exploration of a timeless feeling.

Through thick, expressive strokes of oil, Cornelie Wolff dissolves the specific details and captures the raw essence of movement and emotion. The figures are a blur of vibrant colour, their forms suggested rather than defined, perfectly embodying the uninhibited spirit of play. The pinwheels they hold are not just objects, but bursts of pure colour and light, spinning and dancing with the same wild abandon as the children themselves.

The rich, textured landscape beneath them is an abstract field of dreams, a mosaic of warm earth tones and flashes of bright yellow that pulse with a joyful energy. This painting invites you to feel the moment, to recall the sensation of wind, freedom, and the endless possibilities of a game with no rules.

Cornelie Wolff Approaching Art from a Different Angle

This Johannesburg-based artist started as a pharmacist.  After completing her Honours Degree in Psychology, she joined Helios to further her skills in Art Therapy.   During this time, she fell in love with art, the process and the emotional power it yields.

While raising her family, which consisted of three young children, she took part-time classes with Rika de Klerk and Willie Jacobs.  She also attended workshops led by Koos Bronkhorst, Niel Moss, Willie Jacobs, Rentia Coetzee, Ruth Walters, Elize Bezuidenhout, Douw van Heerden, Charla Maarschalk, and Jennifer McChristian.

Today, she practices what she preaches by creating her work under the motto: “With every painting I complete, I grow as a person and an artist.”

My art is created from a place of wonder – it is my dream for every human to never completely lose the child inside them, because it is our ability to see wonder and magic in things.  I use bold brushstrokes, contrast and an impressionistic approach to entice the viewer to create their own interpretation of the subject and become part of my world.

Oil on Canvas