Artist Floris van Zyl's latest body of work is all about letting go

For Floris van Zyl it is all about letting go.

In his latest body of work, the expressionist painter - whose pieces are characterised by bold, symbolic colours and dramatic brushwork - has focused on "letting the paint and material guide the process along with my heart and eye".

He calls this "untwining" - "taking known shapes apart by painting outside of the lines we draw for ourselves and those drawn by society. To let go and detach from outcomes, to allow paint to happen rather than trying to control it."

He feels this untying of thoughts, feelings and actions, and translating them into art, can affect the "spiritual climate" in a positive way.

Taking a palette knife to realism, he aims to make it abstract, "to extend the paint beyond the boundaries of the form we know".

A striking example is Van Zyl's Underdog, a gnashing depiction of a hyena, which he says is usually perceived as an underdog. He means to show "the strength and beauty in what society might perceive as lesser or dark".

Another piece, Freed, continues the theme of letting go, this time of expectations, and not judging.

Van Zyl studied graphic design in the early 1990s, ran his own design agency for 17 years and returned to painting full time in 2010. In a little more than five years he has created more than 400 artworks, of which about 200 are oil paintings, including landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits.

The bucolic simplicity of a town such as McGregor seems a perfect setting for his new exhibition.

With its lime plaster walls and old Oregon pine windows and doors, La Galleria, opened in March as Dani's Photos Studio and Gallery, a space shared by exhibiting artists.

• Untwine opens at La Galleria on Saturday, July 8, at 11am and runs until July 23. For more information, visit danisphotos.com/la-galleria

• This article was originally published in The Times.