Ras, David

David Ras’ talent as a visual artist is expansive and rich and brings to his work a sense of boundless versatility. His studio in Pretoria sports themes in oil and pastel and charcoal alike, their subjects ranging from Formula One racers to natural vistas and seascapes tempestuous with wind and surf and spray … nudes intense and vivid and dramatic captured in moments of perfect light, exquisite posture and faultless composition in that seemingly accidental way so evocative of the true Impressionist.

Read Artist CV - CLICK HERE

David Ras

David Ras’ talent as a visual artist is expansive and rich and brings to his work a sense of boundless versatility. His studio in Pretoria sports themes in oil and pastel and charcoal alike, their subjects ranging from Formula One racers to natural vistas and seascapes tempestuous with wind and surf and spray … nudes intense and vivid and dramatic captured in moments of perfect light, exquisite posture and faultless composition in that seemingly accidental way so evocative of the true Impressionist.

And an Impressionist this artist certainly is – the brush strokes bold, visible, forthright, even; composition open and the telling play on ever-shifting light and movement … Impressionism, yes, but underpinned by a unique touch of Realism.

When asked to describe his style, Ras coins the phrase “Realist-Impressionist”: ‘I don’t paint photo-realistically,’ he says, ‘which means that I must be an Impressionist.’

His preferred medium is pastel and the genre of his choice is portraiture. This is not surprising considering Ras’ fascination with the human face. Some faces, he says, capture his imagination and cause his creative energy to surge – an enigmatic enchantment the artist himself does not quite understand: magic in the glint of an eye, the set of a jaw, emotion sculpted in line of expression, in knit of brow, tilt of head …


Despite his love of portraiture and pastel, Ras often brings to the canvas the vista and vastness of land and seascape alike – not only in pastel, but also in charcoal, pencil and oil.


Born in Johannesburg in 1942, Ras spent part of his childhood among the children of the Khoi people near Barkley West in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province. From this stems his deep affinity with the West Coast. This remote corner of the world is scenic with whitewashed villages and fishing boats, yet daunting with wilderness sprawling and scorched and dotted with gazelle grazing in the endless haze of heat mirage.

To Ras, however, the real beauty of this land wedged between Kimberley and Namaqualand lies with its people. In their eyes, in their laughter and banter and their demeanor of humble and quiet acquiescence, he says, lie a thousand portraits, a thousand stories waiting to be brought to canvass and to be told to the world.

Although David Ras’ phenomenal talent was clear from a very young age, he only made the fine arts his vocation as recently as 1996 when he resigned as chief draftsman at a major South African corporation. He stresses, however, that this was not the onset of retirement, but indeed the start of a new career – one that would, within the space of just a few years, put his work on permanent exhibition in no fewer than six galleries throughout the country.

Soon, he says, these same galleries will display the faces and places, the beauty and simplicity and unreserved candor of the people of Namaqualand and Goegap, the Great Karoo and the Roggeveld …

This is Ras’ aim, to visit Koiingnaas and Nababeep and Kuboes dead south of Ai-Ais on South Africa’s west coast where live the Khoi and the San of his childhood, they of the thousand portraits, of the stories untold and uncounted. They, these earliest inhabitants of Africa’s south.

Ras regrets his late start as full-time artist, but explains that his responsibilities as a family man had to take precedence. Life as an artist in South Africa, he says, is almost synonymous with financial insecurity.

He notes the irony in the fact that a large portion of South Africans historically hail from European countries like Holland, Germany and France – great ‘art countries’, he calls them:

‘We have the fine arts in our blood,’ he says, ‘yet, in this country, sport is regarded as far more important in our education system.’

The Ras family was especially blessed with artistic talent and David’s mother, Maggie, was the one to recognize the fact: she encouraged the young David and his siblings to develop their various talents to their full. His sister, Nissi, is today a highly-qualified music teacher with a passion for choral music. Formerly a member of both the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Choir and the SABC Chamber Choir, Nissi has coached many choirs, some as noted as the Hollandia Zangers Choir in Pretoria.

Similarly, David’s niece had a volume of poems published at the age of sixteen while his brother, the late Charl Ras, sang in a number of operas produced and hosted by the former PACT (Performing Arts Council of Transvaal).

Other key influences in his art crossed Ras’ path when he enrolled at the Johannesburg College of Art in his mid-thirties. Here he came under the tutelage of Phil Botha and Nico van Rensburg.

Van Rensburg, says Ras, taught him not simply to ‘look’, but to ‘to see’. He was an important influence in Ras’ development as a painter per se. Botha, on the other hand, was his portrait master, the man who showed him how to cultivate his fascination with faces and to bring them to the easel in that singularly delightful, ‘Realist-Impressionist’ way of his.