Penny Siopis (South Africa 1953-)
Pinky Pinky (Red Eyes)

oil on canvas

Artwork date: 2002
Signature details: signed and dated on the reverse
Exhibited: Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 'Pinky Pinky and other Xeni', 14 September to 5 October 2002.
Exchange Rates*: USD 7 199 – 10 799
GBP 5 397 – 8 095
EURO 6 201 – 9 301

(1)

40.5 x 50.5 cm; framed size: 45.5 x 55.5 x 4.5 cm

Provenance:

Private collection of Dr Bruce Hoffman, Cape Town.

Aspire Art, Johannesburg, Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 17 July 2017, Lot 48.

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

COLLECTOR'S NOTE

In the Pinky Pinky series (2002–2004), Penny Siopis draws on the South African urban legend of the same name; a shifting, elusive creature associated with female adolescence, fear and sexuality. Told and retold through schoolyard folklore, Pinky Pinky is never fixed in appearance: part human, part animal, both grotesque and strangely familiar. Siopis was drawn to this instability, describing the figure as process-based and constantly changing with each retelling, without any stable point of reference.[1]

Exhibited in Pinky Pinky & Xeni, the series formed part of a broader meditation on ‘otherness’, anxiety, and social unease. The title’s reference to ‘Xeni’ – derived from a Greek term once used playfully for someone strange or unusual but later associated with xenophobia and exclusion – positioned the exhibition within conversations around fear of the unfamiliar, whether social, bodily, or psychological. Across the works, Siopis allows bodies to emerge and dissolve within heavily worked surfaces of oil paint. Her thick application of paint takes on a tactile quality, evoking flesh, skin, bruising, or decay.

In Pinky Pinky (Red Eyes), the saturated pink surface appears simultaneously seductive and unsettling. The form hovers on the edge of recognition, while dark punctures resembling eyes or wounds heighten the work’s sense of unease. The painting exemplifies Siopis’ interest in “dragging form to the verge of formlessness”[2], using colour, texture, and materiality to communicate an inexpressible dread that resists language. Revisiting the mythology of Pinky Pinky through paint, Siopis transforms a childhood legend into a powerful reflection on fear, violence, and the instability of the body itself.

^{[1] Sebambo, K. (2020). ArThrob, Unfixed Unsettled Pink: On Yolanda Mazwana and Penny Siopis. [ONLINE]. Available: https://artthrob.co.za/2020/06/25/unfixed-unsettled-pink-on-yolanda-mazwana-and-penny-siopis/.}

^{[2] Nuttall, S. (2009). Stevenson, On a Knife Edge. [ONLINE]. Available:}

^{https://archive.stevenson.info/exhibitions/siopis/conversation.htm}

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably the Anglo American Corporation, Johannesburg; Chase Manhattan Bank Art Collection, New York; Constitutional Court of South Africa, Johannesburg; Durban Art Museum; Durban University of Technology; Gordon Schachat Collection, Johannesburg; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery; MTN Art Collection, Johannesburg; Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gqeberha; Peter Stuyvesant Collection, Amsterdam; Javett Art Centre, Pretoria; Rhodes University, Makhanda; Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch; Sasol Art Collection, Johannesburg; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington; SABC Collection, Johannesburg; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; Trust Bank, Johannesburg; The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm; William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER), Johannesburg and the World Bank, Washington, DC.