Hein Botha is a South African artist and graduate of the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. His career has spanned more than five decades across fine art, illustration, design and advertising. As Executive Creative Director at Young & Rubicam, he worked at the forefront of South African advertising and was behind the original launch campaign for M-Net.

His extensive commissioned work also includes numerous South African postage stamp series, while his paintings have been exhibited through galleries including Everard Read, The Cape Gallery, Artvark and Prince Albert Gallery. He now lives and works in the Garden Route.

Drawing and painting allow me to explore and express my connection with nature, people, myths, space and time, while honing my intuitive sensibility. The marks and scars left by the passage of time, together with visual representations of the universal connectedness of the original people of the land, strongly influence my work.

Through image making, I hope to add to the ways we perceive and relate to the world and our place amongst the stars, rekindling the open-spirited visual portrayals and stories told during the brief time we spend on our home planet.

Above all, I want to keep our birthright of pure, childlike wonder alive.

• Everard Read, Cape Town
• Prince Albert Gallery, Prince Albert
• The Cape Gallery, Cape Town
• International Botanical Exhibition, Johannesburg
• Artvark Gallery, Kalk Bay
• Knysna Art Gallery, Knysna
• George Museum, George

• South African Philatelic Services — numerous commemorative and definitive postage-stamp series
• National Arts Festival — launch of Indigenous African Musical Instruments stamp series, 2011
• Winner, Landscape — Visual Expressions, George Museum, 2023

Public collection

South African Post Office Museum Archives — original artwork from philatelic commissions.

Museum presentation

Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town — Symbols of South African Cultures, permanent exhibition incorporating photographic work for South African Philatelic Services.