Artist Database

Anton Karstel was born in Pretoria in 1968. He received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts (1990) and his Master of Fine Arts (1995) from the University of Pretoria. Karstel's primary focus is 20th-century South African history, and he uses images from old books, films, and photographs to explore the past. He expresses his interpretations on canvases using thick impasto and also creates large-scale installations that incorporate found objects.

Karstel has completed artist residencies at the Nirox Foundation in South Africa and at the KDV in Germany. He has exhibited extensively locally and has also shown internationally in Chile, England, Italy, and the USA. He has held many solo exhibitions since 1997, including a mid-career retrospective (Anton Karstel 1995 – 2018) at the Pretoria Art Museum in 2018. His artwork is part of the collections of institutions such as the Iziko South African National Gallery, Pretoria Art Museum, University of Pretoria, and SASOL.