From the time of childhood at home and at school, Alex has made drawings. Later, as Deputy Rector as well as Head of Art at the Edgewood College of Education, and in more recent years, he has engaged with fine art oil painting.

Now aged 83, Dr Alex Coutts has returned to offer ‘oil on canvas’ to buyers who might be interested in South African art, especially in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The paintings are realist, or slightly impressionist.

With climate change now a fact, many of the paintings he creates focuses on the natural environment including mountains, vegetation, flowers, watercourses, beaches, and the creatures such as mammals, birds and marine life within it.

Many insights are derived from the artist certifying game rangers’ qualifications within such game parks as Londolozi close to the Kruger National Park, and Phinda in KwaZulu- Natal.

The cultural factor is present in some paintings focused more on a human presence with buildings, human figures and an urban context.

Paintings have been made in order to generate such reactions as creativity, positivity, empathy, a measure of emotional self- expression, critical thinking, dialogue and more, on the viewers.