"Art means everything to me."

As part of the celebration of Pepper Street's 25th anniversary we profile some artists.

Kensington Gardens artist Gishka Van Ree has been teaching general and botanical drawing at Pepper Street for 14 years. Before that he taught at Adelaide Central School of Art for 18 years. “I had just left there and saw a call out in the local paper for a teacher of drawing. I applied and started two weeks later,” he says. He had to change his style of teaching to suit a different type of student. “I was teaching 20 – 30 year olds who had a degree but never really learnt to draw. Here (at Pepper Street) it is an older student base, many retired people. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing them slowly get involved. I tell my students ‘you have to find your own language of art, your own mediums’.”

Gishka has always worked with organic matter and has two themes in his drawing – fruit and shells. “I am very connected to the environment and nature,” he says. “I tell a story of how seed and kernels flower and then the fruit falls to pieces but the seed is always there.”

“I do a lot of landscape gardening so that is incorporated in my art. I did a series based on gumnuts which sold out. One of them won the 2006 Victor Harbor art prize.”

As classes commence after COVID-19, students are bringing in drawings that they did during lockdown.

Gishka says Pepper Street is a fantastic community based gallery, one of the best in Adelaide.

“I feel very comfortable here. I have five degrees in art but art is not an easy path to be on – you are often flat broke but art means everything to me. It has always been a part of my life.”

He also writes a lot and has had two books published.

“I will never retire from art, I will keep doing it until the day I drop.”