I have this idea of a quiet front that exists inside me (in everyone I suppose), it is the front on which you make a stand against mediocrity, against mindless consumption, against bad ideas and conformity because these things are an assault against your personal and creative freedom.

How do you fight on this front? You fight on it by going through life with your eyes open. You fight on it by reading good books and watching great films. You fight on it by celebrating beauty and strangeness. You fight on it by staying out and dancing all night. You fight on it by holding ideas up to the light. You fight on it by creating things. You fight on it by associating yourself with misfits, artists and wanderers. You fight on it by exercising your freedom of expression.

I grew up in a country that censored pretty much everything, so I’m fucking fighting on it with a large dose of nakedness. I would say that what people do with their own body and what they express with it is the frontline of personal freedom.

About the Blog

The Quiet Front is my personal blog, it is simply me sharing the things I find beautiful and thought provoking.

If you are offended by anything on this site then you can take consolation in the fact that I’m offended by boy-bands but, just like me, there is sweet fuck-all you can do about it. If you are outraged, then I suggest you take your Soma pill and go back to sleep.

I do not claim ownership of any works not tagged ‘my stuff’. If you are the owner of copyright material that is reproduced here and that you believe does not constitute fair use, please contact me and I will remove the post immediately (I will only reply to take-down orders from the artist or from their principal agent, otherwise I will require relevant documentation that you are the party who owns the copyright).

If you are a model posted on The Quiet Front and you feel in anyway uncomfortable being associated with this site, please contact me and I will either remove your name from the posts or I can take down all images of you completely - I will also fix it so that the images associated with my site will no longer show up in Google's search results. (I will only reply to these requests from the model themselves, their principal agent or the photographer of that particular image).

I am interested in finding the authors of uncredited work so that I can acknowledge and link to them, if work is not credited, I apologize. If you are aware of who the artists are, please contact me (pls attach my permalink) and I will verify and then edit the post.

If you are a publisher and see your work uncredited here, please contact me so that I can put a link to your site.

Most of the stuff posted here I have had for a long time and some sources are lost and impossible to retrieve (some no longer even exist). I’ll try to be good about showing sources for work that I’ve reblogged but I’m not putting links to fuckyeahgiantfaketitsdotcom or any other dodgy sites - if that’s not good, it’s too bad.

The Quiet Front was designed and built (by me) using Squarespace. Please give me feedback if you find any broken links or technical problems.

About Me

My name is Lawrence van Niekerk. I am a South African. I'm kind of a loner and a little obsessive but not in a mental way ...ok, maybe just a little mental.

I do my own painting and photography but at various points (including the entire first year of this site) I've had to survive working construction jobs.

I've rolled the dice; I'm now working on creative projects exclusively. My own work may appear on The Quiet Front at some point but for now I just want to get back into my own rhythm.

This is one of the paintings that I'm working on; it'll be a while before I finish it: