Tragicomedy is Peter van Straten. Few contemporary South African painters have managed
to combine such painfully poignant, personal truths with the outrageous misfortune andhilarity of the human conundrum, by magnifying the foibles and follies of brave, cluelessprotagonists in grave, forbidding landscapes. Van Straten’s socio-political farces avoid overtfinger-pointing, and so delve into the heart of what it is to be human. He investigates paradoxes: futility and hubris; creativity and destruction; design and coincidence;indifference and longing, and all from the very personal stance of a bemused yet defiant soulassaulted by the complex stimuli that constitute life.   
Van Straten’s colour palette evokes a sentiment reminiscent to the Dutch Golden Age of painting with a strong lacquer finish.Van Straten’s socio-political farces avoid overt finger-pointing, and so delve into the heart of what it is to be human. He investigates paradoxes: futility and hubris; creativity and destruction; design and coincidence; indifference and longing, and all from the very personal stance of a bemused yet defiant soul assaulted by the complex stimuli that constitute life.