Originally from Europe, Tanja Drews worked as an amateur painter until she moved to Singapore where she started to take formal art classes in Chinese brush painting with Singaporean Master Cham Tau Soon. He awakened her passion for this highly specialised art form, which traces its origins back to 6000 years ago.

During this time Tanja was able to demonstrate her skills in various public showings in Singapore. She then moved to Japan where she extended her knowledge of brush painting to the Japanese style, known as Sumi-e.

 Tanja enlisted at the Tamagawa School of Arts in Tokyo, where she was taught by Shukou Tsuchiya, also known as the Master of Traditional Japanese Ink Wash Painting (Nanboku Suiboku). Her mastery of this technique resulted in her participating as the only Western artist in the Tamagawa Art School exhibition in Ginza, Tokyo in 2001.

After having moved back to Europe Tanja complemented her knowledge of traditional Japanese culture by attending the IORI School for Japanese Tea Ceremony (Omotesenke) in Germany from 2002 to 2009. During that time she participated in several Tea Ceremony presentations and various Art exhibitions.

In 2008 Tanja held an exhibition of solely her own work in Frankfurt.

Since 2011 Tanja lives in Cape Town where she has been developing her own unique style by applying various brush painting techniques to Capetonian landscape themes. Combining one of the world’s oldest art forms of painting with some of the world’s oldest mountain sceneries, fauna and flora offers a wide range of interesting inspirations and a new way to artistically express the beautiful Cape landscape.