cannuck21's Spot Follow

Charles Noel van Sandwyk was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1966. In 1977 he emigrated with his family to Vancouver, Canada. By the early 1980s he was selling his drawings and watercolours in a style reminiscent of the old prints and paintings which hung in the family home. Van Sandwyk studied graphic design at the Capilano College art programme in North Vancouver. Upon completion in 1986, the wanderlust of younger years sent him travelling to the South Pacific. He discovered the Fiji Islands, and fell in love with a remote island and its inhabitants. He began to divide his time equally between Vancouver and Fiji, leasing land from the neighbouring family and building for himself a simple home of grass thatch, in the traditional island style. Van Sandwyk settled into a pleasurable routine of winter seasons in Fiji filled with painting and writing, the results of which were brought back to Canada each summer and prepared for exhibition and publication each autumn. His watercolours, etchings and books are now collected across North America and in Europe. The National Library of Canada has maintained archives on his work since 1986. Van Sandwyk continues to divide his time between Vancouver and his beloved Fiji.