About the Artist

Betty Pontes de Oliveira was born in Angola in 1953 to a Portuguese family whose ascendants originally settled in the 1800’s.  At the age of twelve she started drawing and sketching.


She graduated with a BSc in civil and mining engineering in 1974.
In 1975, during the mass exodus from Angola due to the ongoing war, she settled in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“I feel blessed with my ability to use equally both hemispheres of the brain – the left side for rational and logical thinking and the right hemisphere for the creative mind”.

With the forced emigration into South Africa, the right hemisphere took a back seat in order to make a living.

Finally in 1993, she had the time to pursue the artistic side.  She attended private art lessons with the talented South African painter Ockert Vermeulen and since then she has worked mainly on commissions.

“I find that true expression comes from the ordinary and this is what my paintings portray. What I love most about digital painting is the intermediary state, when the originality is firmly embedded in the canvas. Some of my works “end” at this stage as anything more would become superfluous.

The colours and textures of Africa are predominant, reflecting my love and intrigue for the continent.
Painting allows me to follow a path of serenity and self-discovery “

Photography is another passion and her photographic art expresses mainly African backgrounds and medieval-like village architecture.

“The peak of my creativity is usually late at night; hence the website name: My midnight.

My paintings convey who I am and where I am going”.