The rainbow, this reflection/refraction of the Sun after the rain, like the magic of a smile after the tears – this grandiose display of all the colors of the spectrum including even the finest nuances – is the most beautiful banner a painter could dream of.

And Magdalena Kokines, whose heart never left South Africa where she was born, happens to be a painter down to her fingertips. (…)

She expresses herself in an abstract idiom, impervious to the passing fads. Seen from Paris, her great masters in painting might be the Swiss Paul Klee (for the affinities with music), the Russian Serge Poliakoff (for the balanced juxtaposition of undiluted colors), and the North African Jean-Michel Atlan (for the transposition of movement and dance).

But in fact, one of Kokines’ sources of inspiration is rather to be found in the Veld, north of Pretoria: in those geometrical paintings Ndebele women traditionally trace with the palm of their hands on their house’s wall or facades. It is made with the natural palette provided by the African earth: brown, red, black and ochre – indigo blue and kaolin white. (…)

Their poise and vitality are immediately perceived.