South African artist Vanessa Berlein (b.1968) works across a broad spectrum of subjects, from portraiture to landscape, abstraction to botanical study. In her most recent series, “Scribbled Stories”, she expresses the entries of her journals through a spontaneous intuitive outpouring of layered colour, script and mark making. The seemingly random marks suggest a purging of words, the colours an emotional response to the stories. Berlein is Influenced by the authenticity of expression she finds in the Abstract Expressionist movement, particularly in the work of Twombly, Kline and Pollock.