Biography

Lorraine Loots is a South African artist best known for her miniature painting series, 365 Paintings for Ants, launched in 2013. Despite the illustrious career that followed, Lorraine never planned to become an artist: she dropped Art as a subject in high school, stopped painting indefinitely after finishing Art School (Stellenbosch University, 2010) and once again decided not to choose art as a career after completing two post-graduate courses.

Despite her best intentions to the contrary, Lorraine became an artist almost by accident, when her side project – 365 Paintings for Ants – unexpectedly turned into a full-blown occupation. In this series, she set out to paint a miniature every day for an entire year, allowing people to “book” certain dates and thus own the paintings created on these days. The project was met with an astounding international response, prompting her to follow on her first collection with another year-long challenge in 2014, titled ‘365 Postcards for Ants’.

In 2015, the artist launched 100 Paintings for Ants – a similar project, but with a more flexible schedule – which freed up time for a series of international exhibitions, from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. In June 2019, Lorraine put on her largest exhibition yet – and her first in London – where she displayed the over 900 miniature paintings she has created over the past 6 years. Loots’ work has been featured on CNN, The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, Colossal, Buzzfeed, The Evening Standard and Gizmodo among many others, and she currently has an Instagram following of 292 000.

Loots’ work is grounded in her sentimentality and sensitivity to her surroundings. Early on, nostalgia became a strong theme in her life – and the idea of specific dates holding personal significance took on new meaning – with the loss of both her brothers (in separate incidents) at the ages of 15. With this, the idea of dates as significant markers became central to her; as did the idea of physically marking each day…

Press & Videos

2019

• The Standard, London. 4 June 2019.
• The Daily Maverick, South Africa. 13 April 2019. 

2018

• The Culture Trip, US. 8 October 2018.
• Top Billing, South Africa. June 2018. 
• Courtesy of the Artist, Australia. April 2018.

2017

• South China Morning Post, Hong Kong. 24 October 2017. 
• The Straits Times, Singapore. 25 September 2017. 

2016

• South China Morning Post, Hong Kong. 7 September 2016.
• The Impakter, Global. 1 March 2016.

2015

• The South African, South Africa. 10 July 2015. 
• CBS News, US. 9 July 2015.
• NYmag’s Bedford & Bowery blog, US. 6 July 2015.
• Architectural Digest, US. 30 June 2015. 
• Visi, South Africa. 18 June 2015.
• Brooklyn Magazine, US. 18 June 2015.
• Colossal, US. 17 June 2015. 
• The Daily Mail, UK. 18 June 2015. 
• CNN, US. 24 April 2015. 
• Bored Panda, US. 2015

2014

• The Daily Mail, UK. 15 Oct 2014.
• Huffington Post, US. 23 Sept 2014.
• Gizmodo, Australia. 18 September 2014.
• My Modern Met, US. 17 September 2014.
• Gizmodo, US. 16 Sept 2014.
• Buzzfeed, US.14 March 2014.
• The Mail & Guardian, South Africa. 31 January 2014. 

#ANTSinCHICAGO by Gareth Pon – July 2017

#ANTSinNYC by Gareth Pon – June 2015

365 Paintings for Ants by Lorraine Loots by Gareth Pon – June 2014