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http://www.cyrilcoetzee.co.za/

With the exception of T'kama-Adamastor, Coetzee's large canvas for the William Cullen Library, the iconography of which was based for the most part on André Brink's novella Cape of Storms: The First Life of Adamastor, the artist's narrative paintings are not illustrative of texts or stories. First and foremost they evolve according to their own logic of visual suggestion and literary association, and only in those terms may invoke pre-existing narratives. Although in works like Revelations (1983) or The Enormous Room (1990) there are clear references for instance to sacred texts, the underlying concern of the works is really poetic and exploratory rather than traditionally illustrative.

As Coetzee put it in the 1993 catalogue for an exhibition of his work at the UNISA Art Gallery:"Large parts of a given work, prompted initially by mood, intuition or visual excitement alone, were often fully established on the canvas before the theme announced itself to me. This verbal moment of birth then allowed me, sometimes via departures into reading or writing, to fashion the work further and bring it to completion. The opening moves of a painting are really a visual strategy for raising questions, to which the dialogue of the ensuing process provides an answer of sorts."