At the opening of his first European exhibition, Australian-based artist Werner Bronkhorst declared, “Art should be appreciated slowly.” This sentiment may surprise anyone who has seen his work on Instagram or TikTok, where the 25-year-old has helped define what it means to be a viral contemporary artist, whose works sell for as much as US$460,000 ($660,000) a pop.
Bronkhorst lives at Bondi Beach, minutes from the water, with his partner and two children. Born in Pretoria and raised in South Africa, he moved to Sydney at 18. He was 13 when he started using Instagram, four years after it began. Since then, he has photographed and posted every artwork he has made. In 2022, after 10 years of posting and regularly sharing his art, his work went viral. Today, this self-taught artist has 1.8 million followers. Virality is important to Bronkhorst. “I’m always chasing views, the next thing, the next big audience,” he says.
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