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Siopis, Penelope

Article credits to http://davidkrutprojects.com



A well-established artist and noted academic, Penny Siopis is particularly interested in the ways that national history and personal memory intersect in visual narratives of the South African social climate. She studied BA Fine Arts at Rhodes University as well as a post-graduate course in painting at Portsmouth Polytechnic, England, before taking up a lecturing position at the Natal Technikon in Durban. In 1984 she moved to Johannesburg and since 1995 has lectured in the Department of Fine Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. Until early 2010, she held the position of Associate Professor in Fine Arts but has since moved to Cape Town to work as a full-time artist.

Siopis became very well known for her ‘banquet’ paintings (particularly Melancholia, 1986) and her ironical history paintings in the 1980′s, the latter focusing on questions of race and gender representation in public history. During the 1990′s she extended her range of media to include monumental installations, printmaking and video. She is particularly interested in the intersection of biography and autobiography in narrating aspects of South African history through film. Her later bodies of works often deal with concerns of shame, violence and sexuality.

Siopis has exhibited extensively both locally and abroad. In 2002 Siopis had an exhibition in Johannesburg entitled Pinky – Pinky and other Xeni. Subsequent to this show, Siopis worked on the Shame series and Siestog prints, which were published by David Krut and relate to that body of work.

Scenery of the Four Seasons 2009

 

Penny Siopis’s practice spans a variety of media including painting, photography, film and installation. Born in 1953 in Vryburg, South Africa, the artist explores themes such as violence, race, gender and sexuality, all under the umbrella of what Siopis calls the ‘poetics of vulnerability’. Penny Siopis has become particularly interested in the use of found objects within her work, the physicality of her materials and the politics surrounding the female body, the present work being exemplary of the latter two.

 

Using a mixture of ink and glue, Siopis pours and splatters her materials onto her canvas, gently manoeuvering and manipulating the mediums when necessary. The capillary action that inevitably occurs between the ink, water and glue, results in the creation of elegant, free flowing areas of colour. The present work by Siopis positions these formless areas of colour against the presence of the female form, often blurring the boundaries between the two. The porous boundaries within the work lend themselves to Siopis's exploration of the politics surrounding the female form, balancing the beauty of the female body with the violence and shame experienced by women around the world on a daily basis. In addition to being categorized as one of South Africa’s leading contemporary artists, Penny Siopis is also often celebrated as a feminist icon.

 

A professor at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Siopis had a major retrospective entitled Time and Again at the Iziko South African National Gallery and the Witwatersrand Art Museum in 2014-15. The artist has also exhibited at the Kunsthaus Dresden, Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo and the 2003 and 2013 Venice Biennale South Africa Pavilion, amongst others. Most recently the artist has exhibited with the Erg Gallery in Brussels, the Taipei Biennial and had a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean.

 

Reference: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/modern-contemporary-african-l17801/lot.59.html

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