Lodestar

Medium: Hand coloured lithograph.
Paper size: 37 x 28 cm
Edition size: 5

Maria Marais is an artist who lives and works in Mbombela, Mpumalanga. Born in Eswatini to Portuguese parents, her family relocated to the Lowveld in 1965. 

"A lodestar is a star, most notably the North Star, or Polaris, used for navigation. In a broader sense, the word can also refer to a person, principle, or guiding light that offers direction and inspiration.

For me, that guiding light was my mother.

This piece recalls a childhood journey home at night, when our car’s headlights failed on a mountain pass, leaving us in total darkness.  By faint torchlight, my mother guided the car to the safety of the road verge until help arrived, just as she guided us both literally and figuratively throughout our lives.

It is a tribute to her, the enduring guiding light and North Star by which I still navigate my life, willingly and sometimes reluctantly." Maria Marais 2026

Most of Marais's career has been working in architecture, alongside which she has participated in several exhibitions and art-related workshops.