Hanien Conradie’s decade-long dialogue with water culminates in an art exhibition at Spier’s Old Wine Cellar this summer.
Most Western Cape residents remember 2018 vividly – the year Cape Town nearly ran out of water. “Day Zero,” they called it: the moment municipal taps would run dry and residents would queue for daily water rations. The crisis was averted through dramatic water-use reductions and eventual winter rains, but it changed how many of us think about water. Perhaps the first time for many, what we’d always taken for granted revealed itself as precious, finite and vital.
Artist Hanien Conradie has been exploring this truth for a decade. Water is life. It moves through our bodies, nourishes our vines and shapes our landscapes. On our farm, every drop counts – we recycle 100% of our water and return it, clean, to the land that sustains us. So when Conradie approached us about exhibiting her ten-year exploration of water, the collaboration flowed easily.
Water-Verse: Traces of the Traceless opens in our Old Wine Cellar this October, inviting you to consider water not just as a resource, but as a presence – fluid, powerful and memory-bearing.
Paint, Clay and Collaboration
Conradie’s chosen art materials are natural pigments: clay, soot, ash and ochre. She lets the water do the work, giving form to emotion before it evaporates and leaves the pigment behind. As she puts it, “What we might call ‘paint’ could be described as a collaboration.”
The exhibition unfolds chronologically, mapping her relationship with water across South African landscapes. Raaswater (2015) attempts to restore the voice of the silenced Hartebees River near Worcester. Of Water and Invoking (2017) emerged during Cape Town’s devastating drought – waterscapes of lilies painted as both grief and prayer for rain. The Flood Series (2023) uses ancestral clay to show how water can transform familiar landscapes beyond recognition.
In her film Watervers (2025), Conradie walks backwards into water and disappears – an immersion into mystery and transformation.
Watch an Artist at Work
During the first month of the exhibition, Conradie will create a site-specific painting inside the Old Wine Cellar using local ochres and water drawn from our ponds. You’ll be able to witness her process – a rare chance to see how water itself guides her art.
Throughout the exhibition, Conradie will lead a series of intimate walkabouts exploring different aspects of her work. These free sessions offer deeper insight into her decade-long dialogue with water, from the animism of painting to working with local ochres.
Exhibition Details
Water-Verse: Traces of the Traceless
Open daily 9:00 – 17:00 from 22 February 2026
Venue: Old Wine Cellar
Free entry
Walkabout with the artist
When Water Speaks: Art and Animism
Saturday 15 November at 11:00 with Colin Campbell and Hanien Conradie
A Body of Water: Painting and Performance in a Time of Water
Saturday 29 November at 11:00 with Hanien Conradie
The Colours of Place: An Encounter with Ochre
Saturday 13 December at 11:00 with Hanien Conradie
Tracing the Traceless: Conversations with Water
Saturday 17 January at 11:00 with Hanien Conradie
Closing: Cresting the Divide: Entering the Age of Water
Saturday 21 February at 11:00 with Colin Campbell and Hanien Conradie
All walkabouts are free but booking is required.
About Art at Spier
Art, like food and wine, is best shared, which is why Spier is such an enthusiastic supporter of African artists and their creations. Housing one of the largest contemporary art collections in the country, Spier believes in the power of the visual arts to teach and inspire, encouraging us all to engage openly with our world and each other. With such a thriving local artistic community and rich cultural heritage, Spier is excited about the future of South African art.
