BIOGRAPHY
Keith Joubert was born in 1948 in Germiston, east of Johannesburg.He studied at the Johannesburg School of Art from 1963 to 1967 after which he worked commercially for some years. Since 1970 Keith Joubert has painted African wildlife and the environment. He travels frequently throughout Southern Africa, but spends most of his time in the Okavango Swamps, Botswana, where he has a houseboat and a studio camp at Linyanti in the northern part.
Keith Joubert´s seemingly effortless renditions of Africa with their contemporary vision,impeccable draftsmanship and tonality gain rapidly increasing acknowledgment internationally. His works play on the subtle inter-relationships between different facets in the ecosystem where the diminutive and seemingly innocuous creatures are as essential as the larger animals that evolved within Africa. Joubert has also developed a deep fascination with indigenous human cultures which have successfully co-existed with their natural environment for generations.
Keith Joubert has lived and painted on the banks of the Linyanti Swamp in Northern Botswana. His studio, like his bedroom, is a tent during winter
and a simple tarpaulin during the hot summer months. He also owns a large farm near the northern part of Kruger Park where he is visited by elephants and other teaming game at his open bush studio.
He is a large man with a long beard, strong from a life in the bush where he walks kilometers every day. His closeness with the creatures that inhabit his world stem from hours in their company. Often I have seen him sitting on his haunches idly spending the time with a nearby herd of elephants, zebras and the like.
Joubert is one of Africa´s most successful living artist. His work hangs in many corporate and private collections worldwide. Success, though, has not complicated his life and he retains a marvelously carefree and simple existence.Success can bring material gain, but with it often comes unnecessary responsibilities. Joubert emphatically believes in owning as few objects as possible - a good four-wheel drive vehicle as he is a restless man, a tent and a camp bed. Of course he is an artist, so the tools of his trade infest his camp - the finest Belgian flax leans against Marula trees awaiting a layer of paint which sits incongruously in boxes under the tent flap.
