Old Aberdeen

Aberdeen is a small town nestled in the bigness of the Eastern Cape Karoo—remote, sun-washed, and quietly dignified. It’s not a place you pass through in a hurry, and that’s probably how it has managed to preserve so much of its architectural soul. Time seems to have slowed its stride here, leaving behind a living museum of classic Karoo design: gables and tin roofs, wrap-around stoeps, corrugated walls weathered by decades of sun and silence.

Declared a conservation town, Aberdeen has become something of a rarity—a place where heritage isn’t hidden under layers of glass and chrome, but stands plain and visible, bleached and beautiful in the Karoo light. There’s a quiet reverence in how the town is cared for, as if each building holds a whispered story worth preserving. A simple walk through its dusty, shaded streets can feel like paging through the past—memories held together by whitewashed walls and the scent of dry earth.

Here’s hoping my painting, Old Aberdeen, captures just one of those moments. It focuses on a weathered corner shop that sits in quiet retirement, half forgotten but far from lost. The kind of building you’d drive past without much thought unless you were really looking—or unless you were asked, as I was, to see it with more than just your eyes.

This painting came about as a commission from an old friend—Brendan—someone I hadn’t been in touch with for decades, until a year or two ago when, out of the blue, he reached out and began buying Bonney. I was surprised, of course, but also chuffed. There’s something very grounding about reconnecting with people from your past in such a tangible way—through art. Recently again, he got in touch with a new idea, asking if I’d be open to painting something a little different from my usual wide open, remote Karoo landscapes. His brief was simple, but meaningful: something evocative… of Aberdeen. A painting that didn’t just show a place but stirred something of its spirit. Something along the lines of, and motivated by, a painting I had done years back. I’m guessing he wanted the nostalgia, the mood and the character that he saw in that old painting. But more especially something completely different from the usual wide open Karoo fynbos, distant mountains and remote farmsteads that I usually do!

I’ll be honest—this wasn’t entirely in my usual comfort zone. I tend to gravitate toward a different kind of subject… the faraway plains, mountains, farmsteads, drooping farm gates, creaking windmills and the quintessential worker cottages of the Karoo platteland. Places where the silence is as much a feature as the land itself. But there was something in this request—and in the memory of that part of the country—that tugged at my heartstrings. The Karoo is like that. Understated. Persistent. It creeps in quietly and stays with you. And it’s more than just the wide-open emptiness; it’s also in the quiet streets, old-school architecture, and the charm of its remote towns.

The shop I painted, perched quietly on a corner under the watchful gaze of Karoo skies, is one of those places that wears its years proudly. It doesn’t beg for attention, and yet once you stop and look, you can’t help but wonder about its story. The walls, once neatly plastered, now crack and crumble in slow, dignified decay. Old signage—once probably bright and welcoming—is now little more than a ghosted script, sun-faded into the walls like memories etched into old skin.

What really caught my eye, though, was the bakkie. A proper classic—an old Toyota workhorse parked just in front of the shop. Faded sky blue, tyres coated in dust, and a windscreen reflecting that big Karoo sky like a half-remembered dream. It felt right. Familiar. That bakkie could belong to any number of Aberdeen locals—or it might’ve been parked there for years, a leftover from a time when this shop was the bustling heart of the neighbourhood. I didn’t even need to ask whose it was. It was part of the story.

There’s something quintessentially South African about a weathered Toyota bakkie parked outside a town shop. It grounds the image. Gives it weight. It’s a detail that says more than a thousand brushstrokes ever could. It says: people were here. Life happened here.

This painting became a study not in grandeur, but in quietness. In stillness. In that unique, dusty kind of dignity that old Karoo buildings seem to embody so effortlessly. I found myself working slowly, deliberately—letting the lines remain simple, keeping the palette muted, letting texture carry the weight of the emotion. There’s no drama here, no great sky exploding with colour, no distant mountain ranges to steal the eye. Just a corner. A building. A moment.

But for me, it’s those moments that count. Because they speak to a different kind of beauty—the kind you almost miss if you’re not paying attention.

Painting this piece made me think about time, and how it moves differently in places like Aberdeen. The past doesn’t get swept away in a rush to modernise. It lingers. Sometimes that’s because no one’s come along to change it, sure. But sometimes—especially here—it feels like a choice. Like the town itself has decided that history matters. That it’s worth holding onto.

And that’s something I deeply admire. Because it mirrors what I try to do with paint. To hold onto something fleeting. To preserve a feeling, a moment, a mood. To show that beauty isn’t always shiny and new. Often, it’s in the wear and the tear. The weathered timber. The rust. The fading paint. The light that falls across a stoep in late afternoon and makes everything glow just a little golden.

Brendan, if you’re reading this—thank you. Thank you for the interesting brief, and for the gentle nudge into different territory. Sometimes the best paintings are the ones that come from unexpected corners, both literally and creatively. I really enjoyed doing this one. It made me look again at the Karoo… at Aberdeen, yes, but also at how much of the Karoo’s magic is found not just out in the veld, but right in its towns—in the buildings, the textures, the stories baked into brick and dust.

So here it is: Old Aberdeen. A painting of a corner, a shop, and an old bakkie that could tell more stories than I ever could. It’s a tribute not only to a building, but to a way of being that still exists, even if only in small, quietly tenacious ways. It’s a painting of faded things, yes—but also of enduring ones. Of places that last, even when no one’s watching.

And maybe that’s what I love most about it—that something so ordinary can be, in its own way, quite extraordinary. That there is value in the quiet. In the overlooked, in the unassuming. In the still-standing.

Because sometimes, the most beautiful thing you can paint… is the thing that’s simply still there.

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