By Leon Haasbroek

Photographs Johan Venter

A Journey in Oil, Spirit and Soul

For over five decades, Sheila Jarzin Levinson has painted more than just canvases - she’s traced the quiet curves of the human spirit. Her work doesn’t shout; it resonates. Each brushstroke is a whisper of emotion, a diary entry rendered in oil.

Her long-standing creative dialogue with her late husband, poet and psychiatrist - Bernard Levinson, is the stuff of artistic alchemy. What began with one poem inspired by a painting evolved into a 40-year dance between image and word. “His poems were never my story,” she says. “They were his interpretation - his response to my work.” Their partnership didn’t influence her themes, but it mirrored them, amplifying the emotional energy already on canvas.

This deep-seated belief in connection has defined Sheila’s career far beyond the studio. At Johannesburg’s Artist Proof Studio, she mentored scores of emerging voices, many of whom had never been told their creativity mattered. One memory stays with her - a young artist, angry and hardened, who had never heard the words I love you. “He asked me what love meant,” she says quietly. “After a year of counselling, his entire personality transformed. He’s now one of APS’s most successful artists.”

Sheila’s exhibitions have never been about display - they’re invitations. Soul Journey, her solo exhibition, embodied this fully: a soft-spoken call to pause, to reflect, to feel. Her pieces are not statements, but soul-mirrors. In one instance, a woman broke down in front of a painting Sheila created after the death of her son. “She couldn’t live with it - it was too painful. But I had touched a human heart.”

While her work leans abstract, it’s far from removed. Societal pressures, political tension, and personal grief filter through, often unconsciously. “The stresses of our environment make their way into the work,” she notes. “My response is there - always emotional, never didactic.” Oil paint, she believes, holds a vocabulary - words often can’t access. And colour? It does the heavy lifting.

She’s honest about the challenges facing today’s artists. The digital age has warped our understanding of value and excellence. “Mediocrity is our modern anthem,” she says. “But art is still a process of becoming. Every canvas is a new beginning.” Her advice? Do the work. Hone your eye. Listen to your inner voice.

True to form, she’s never worked in isolation. Her collective, Studio 4, was a creative crucible - a space for brutal honesty and deep artistic nourishment. “We fed each other,” she says. “Collaboration never dulled my voice. It refined it.”

Even now, Sheila’s practice remains deeply rooted in the present. She paints her pain, her joy, her growth - not for permanence, but for presence. A recent work, created on the 19th anniversary of her son’s death, emerged almost on its own. “It painted itself,” she says. “Naming my grief allowed me to feel it - and in that, to heal.”

In a world increasingly shaped by speed and simulation, Sheila remains certain: the human spirit cannot be replicated. “Digital brilliance can never replace the creative human voice,” she says. “Art is the gut. The soul. It’s the language of the heart.”

And at the centre of it all - her work, her life, her philosophy - is a single, gentle invitation: Walk gently… walk softly. This is a journey of the soul.

We close this feature with one of the many poems written by Bernard Levinson — a tribute not only to Sheila’s work, but to the sacred creative dialogue they shared. His words, like her brushstrokes, speak to the soul.

There are moments

When a sunset

changes

The entire world.

Mystic mountains appear.

Buildings hide

In a soft magenta mist.

In that moment

You are

The gentle path winding

In the mountain core.

"There are moments