About
Sarina Engelbrecht is a South African contemporary artist working across mixed media, digital art, photography, cyanotype, ink, encaustic wax and ceramics.
With a background in photography and visual storytelling, her practice is rooted in observation, composition, and an intuitive understanding of human psychology. Over time, her work has evolved beyond documentation into a more layered and conceptual exploration of inner worlds.
Her digital and new media works are constructed through a process of accumulation and transformation. She works with photographs of her own paintings, drawings, textures, and photographic imagery, alongside digital drawings created on Procreate. These elements are layered, manipulated, and reassembled to form intricate, multi-dimensional compositions.
This process allows her to move fluidly between mediums – blurring the boundaries between the tactile and the digital, the conscious and the subconscious.
Based in South Africa, Engelbrecht is an emerging artist whose work engages with themes of spirituality, dreams, mythology, animal symbolism, and the complexities of human desire.
Alongside her primary practice, Engelbrecht has recently begun exploring ceramics as an emerging extension of her work. Her engagement with clay is both tactile and intuitive – ranging from hand-built forms to painting on bisque-fired surfaces. This developing body of work reflects a growing interest in materiality, surface, and the translation of her visual language into three-dimensional form.
History
Now based in Jeffreys Bay, Engelbrecht draws continuous inspiration from the natural world – its rhythms, textures, and quiet symbolism. The presence of ocean, wildlife, and shifting light informs both the emotional tone and visual language of her work, grounding her practice in a sense of place while expanding into more introspective and symbolic territories.
Photography remains her first love, with light as her enduring muse. Her career as a photographer and graphic designer laid the foundation for a way of seeing that naturally evolved into a process of re-creation – altering, layering, and reimagining imagery beyond its original form. This intersection between disciplines became central to her practice.
A pivotal moment came with the introduction of the iPad into her workflow, opening up new possibilities within digital and new media. What began as an extension of her existing practice has since developed into a primary medium -allowing for a seamless integration of photography, drawing, and painterly elements.
Engelbrecht is also interested in challenging the lingering stigma surrounding digital art. Her works are entirely constructed from her own original material – photographs, drawings, and paintings – ensuring that each piece remains rooted in authorship and intellectual property. Rather than relying on generative processes, her approach is deliberate and hands-on, with each composition built through an intuitive process of layering and refinement.
The adaptability of digital work further allows her pieces to exist across a range of materials and formats, extending beyond traditional presentation into the realm of functional art – where image, object, and environment begin to intersect.
Location
Jeffreys Bay, South Africa