30th Sep, 2021 19:00
Modern & Contemporary Art
77
Penny Siopis (South Africa 1953-)
Flame
watercolour, ink and glue on paper
Sold for R147,940
Estimated at R120,000 - R180,000
watercolour, ink and glue on paper
(1)
76.5 x 40.5, framed size: 90 x 54 x 3 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, Johannesburg.
Notes:
Penny Siopis has long been interested in what she terms “the poetics of vulnerability”, where materiality itself is emphatically as much image and concept as any depicted subject might be. In Flame, a young woman surrounded in billowing red eruptions, is boldly apparent despite having emerged from the chance-driven process. Such assured outcomes are evidence of the artist’s command of her medium which she allows to develop even as she sees and draws meaning from its chance progress.
In her Lasso catalogue introduction, Siopis writes: “Ideas work more by association than direct narration. In this, the medium is as important as image or narrative.” [1]. More than 30 of Siopis’ paintings – in oil, ink and viscous glue – were included in this 2007 exhibition and catalogue, which accompanied her first solo show in Cape Town since 1984.
Articulating her vision and process as well as the milieu in which they arise, Siopis has noted “We live in turbulent times. The integrity of our bodies and souls seems challenged at every turn. We are prey to violence, disease, global conflicts. We are so thin-skinned. [...] The poetics to which I am devoted emphasises as much the materiality of the image as its content or concept. Viscous glue can drip in a way that makes the image – or person depicted – appear decomposing, coming apart. Glue, tinged with ink, can completely create the image, bind it as idea ... Glue can also cover the image like a protective second skin ... Paint can slip away from the image it shapes, but it can also give the image cogent form. Colour is a seduction as much as the stain of experience, finding itself in the oddest of places. [2]
[1] Siopis, P. (2007). Lasso. Cape Town: Michaels Stevenson (2007), (unpaginated).
[2] Ibid.
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art, 30th Sep, 2021
Aspire Art Auctions brings a significant and insightfully compiled selection of top-quality modern and contemporary art to auction in Cape Town. The sale stars exceptional works by many of South Africa’s big signatures, including, William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins, Penny Siopis, Edoardo Villa, Sydney Kumalo and J.H Pierneef, amongst others. Also featured is an exciting collection of contemporary artists from elsewhere in Africa – Patrick Bongoy and Zemba Luzamba from the Congo, Moustapha Baïdi Oumarou from Cameroon and Gerald Chukwuma from Nigeria.
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