Claudia Treagus

Claudia Treagus was born in the United Kingdom in 1967 and lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She studied art at school but initially chose a career in speech therapy. Her return to art began years later when a friend gave her a box of pastels during a period of sleeplessness while she was pregnant. Painting at night gradually developed into a new form of communication, shifting her focus from the spoken word to visual expression. Treagus later volunteered with the Sisterhood Art Project in Capricorn and began working as a full-time artist in 2019. Although she has no formal tertiary art qualification, she has built a distinctive practice through sustained studio work, observation and experimentation.
Her subjects are drawn largely from her immediate surroundings. The mountains, gardens, fynbos and changing light of the Western Cape provide an ongoing source of inspiration, alongside still lifes and the human figure. She describes her practice as a “visual gratitude journal”—a way of recording and sharing the moments of beauty she encounters in daily life.
Treagus often works on unstretched canvas attached directly to the studio wall. This allows her to draw, paint, scrape, scratch and apply pressure freely. Mixed media gives her the flexibility to follow the subject intuitively, while visible alterations and unexpected marks remain part of the completed painting.

Her exhibition history includes the solo presentation My Capricorn Series at Eclectica Contemporary in 2018; NANO 1.3 at Barnard Gallery in 2019; and Home Is Where the Art Is at Zeitz MOCAA in 2020. In 2023, she participated in Still Life/Interior Life at Marvol Gallery and Celebrating Life in False Bay at the Olympia Gallery Wall. That same year, she received the South African Society of Artists’ Best Still Life Award.

Treagus’s work forms part of private collections and continues to resonate with collectors drawn to expressive South African painting, bold colour and a deeply personal response to the natural world.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & ACHIEVEMENTS

2026
Group exhibition: ROOTED at StateoftheART, Stanford, Western Cape

2023
First prize, Best Still Life Award at South African Society of Artists, Cape Town
Group Exhibition: Still Life/Interior Life at Marvol Gallery, Hazendal, Cape Town
Group Exhibition: Celebrating life in False Bay at Olympia Gallery Wall, Cape Town
2020
Group Exhibition: Home Is Where The Art Is at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
2019
Group Exhibition: NANO 1.3 at the Barnard Gallery, Cape Town
2018
Solo Exhibition: My Capricorn series  for Eclectica Collection at Eclectica Contemporary, Cape

Which artists, books or music have inspired your work?
Millet and Van Gogh were early favorites of mine because they painted everyday scenes from real life. Obviously, I have been influenced by so many artists, but more recently, Louise Fletcher’s approach to making art, one of pursuing joy in the making, has had a huge impact on me. I read The Artist’s Way by Jullie Cameron during lockdown and also encouraged a freedom to be myself in the way I approach every aspect of my art making (and my life).

Which South African deceased artist do you most admire and why?
Irma Stern because she was so courageous in pursuing artmaking in the face of such criticism and scorn.  I love her choice of subjects and the strength of her work (vivid colours/strong contrasts)

Pick three artists who you would be honored to exhibit with – and why
I will limit my answer to 3, living, local artists to make it easier.
Sasha Hartslief, Jenny Parson, and Helen van Stolk.  Although each of these are so different, their work is honest and individual, painting from a place of their own curiosity and joy and I think it shows.

How did you get started? Did you always want to be an artist?
Until the age of 15 I had never considered myself and art in one thought, but when my art teacher asked me to take art as a final subject at school, it was like a door into a new world opened.  Still I did not think of art as a proper career and only much later, during a heavy pregnancy that seemed to allow no sleep, I started painting again, at night. My husband was astonished!

What are some of the key themes you explore in your work?
Seeing beauty in everyday life.  Like a visual gratitude journal.

What should people know about your art that they can’t tell from looking at it?
Oooh that’s a hard question.  Maybe that it’s hard for me to part with each piece, and that it’s really important to me that wherever it ends up it brings joy.

What are the most essential items in your studio and why?
I have about 3 favourite brushes (they are like friends), my china-marker and paintbrush attached to a long stick

Tell us more about your creative process.
Most of my paintings start with noticing something.  Sometimes I have a sketch book or can get back to make a note of the details on paper, but more and more, I go back to the studio and try to paint the feeling and the things I noticed, from memory.  I am quite tactile, so if I can, I draw on these memories as well as how I felt inside when the moment of noticing happened.
I prefer to paint on unstretched canvas taped to the wall as it allows me to apply pressure when I paint, draw, stick, scrape and scratch.  This more basic stage in the canvas’s life also means that I feel less pressure to “make a painting” so I am freer to experiment, make mistakes and have fun.  I am happy for this journey to show in the final product.  Our mistakes are part of who we are I am comfortable with that.

Do you believe an artist should use their platform to influence society? Why?
Visual arts, poetry, writing, and music can all be used to influence society, but it is not the only purpose of art, nor the only reason every artist creates.  Although having an influence on society is a high calling, as humans we also need to communicate the everyday stuff, to laugh, to tell stories, to see one another, and to notice beauty.

Do you have a favourite or most meaningful work?
Yes

What is your greatest achievement as an artist to date?
I have a friend who grew up in great poverty and neglect.  He became a gangster and a drug addict.  I met him quite soon after he had managed to break out of this terrible life. Initially I helped at an outreach program he ran at his old primary school, and we ended up working together and our lives overlapped for a number of years.  I learnt so much from him. It’s almost 10 years later now and he has moved to the US with his wife. I met up with them on their recent visit and he commented about how he was enjoying my art on social media platforms.  I was clearly surprised and was even more so when he told me that I had introduced him to art and that his growing enjoyment of it is a way that he tracks his recovery. I was touched and humbled by this.

What are your aspirations for the future?
I would love to earn a steady income from my artmaking.  This would reflect that it resonated with people and as a result it was sought after.  And this would only happen if I could grow more and more into painting the things, and in a way that bring me joy.  With curiosity and delight and without fear.