Culture Worldview
You stumble into a cave through an unexpected crevice. The ground swallows you whole.
Darkness presses in from all sides. It suffocates you.
The air is damp and cold, carrying the sharp scent of wet stone. A familiarity reaches your soul.
Every step echoes. The surroundings overwhelm you, hollow, vast, and unreachable. The ground is slippery and uncertain.
You hear movement in the shadows, touches of air, something unseen. Fear hugs you like a lover on a hot summer eve. There is no turning back.
Far ahead, a faint light flickers: the unimaginable—hope!
You rush forward, only to slip on the slick stone and hurt yourself.
In unbound silence and pain, you collect your thoughts. A moment passes and you can hear yourself breathe steady and strong.
Slowly,
carefully,
you press on. Step by step.
Finally the light grows, revealing the cave walls—polished stones, layered folds, streaks of color hidden in the dark. You are surrounded by the breath of the cosmos. Upon reflection, you realize you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Caught up in euphoria, you emerge into open space.
Sunlight washes across your face, the air warm and fresh, and the stones glimmer like jewels.
The cave's darkness fades, and what was hidden is now breathtakingly clear, full of beauty and freedom.
Neethling's paintings reflect the human experience of today—an experience that, while shaped by the modern world, has never truly changed since the beginning of time. His work resonates with the enduring path toward meaning.
Uncertainty and transition remain constants in human life. In the modern world, the future can often feel unclear and the way forward complex. Neethling's compositions suggest movement through layered, shifting spaces, mirroring the challenges, choices, and changes people face in their own lives. Light, shadow, depth, and form create a sense of passage and discovery, echoing both individual and collective searches for meaning and illuminating revelations.
The figures in his paintings exist in a universal sense, without gender or fixed identity. They appear as travelers in motion, engaging with their environments and moving through unfamiliar terrain. Their presence highlights the shared human journey of navigating uncertainty and discovery, reflecting the rhythm of choice, change, and the ongoing search for meaning.
His work is shaped by a deep engagement with both Eastern and Western culture. From Western traditions comes a spirit of bold self-expression and the drive to move beyond limits. From Eastern traditions comes harmony, balance, and patience. In his paintings, these perspectives merge, not as opposites, but as a shared search for meaning—an exchange that crosses cultural boundaries and speaks to a wider human story.
Nature is central to this language. Inspiration is drawn from caves, mountains, and landscapes, where time leaves its mark on form and texture. The layered folds of stone, the play of light in darkness, and the slow shaping of terrain over centuries all echo through his compositions. These natural elements embody passage, transformation, and the dialogue between shadow and illumination, grounding the pursuit of meaning in the rhythms of the earth itself.
Neethling's philosophy is rooted in lived experience. His family endured hardship, starting with little and persevering through struggle. This inheritance of resilience shapes his outlook—life is not given, it is continually built, rebuilt, and transformed. Neethling himself has faced loss and the need to start over more than once, yet each beginning became a path to deeper understanding and renewed strength. His art mirrors this journey: a visual testament to the human capacity to endure, to adapt, and to rise beyond circumstances. Through this, his work speaks to the shared human story—our tenacity, our will to overcome, and our search to become more than what life's trials would reduce us to.