Lisa Brice (South Africa 1968-)
Untitled

oil on paper

Artwork date: 2005
Exchange Rates*: USD 48 861,13 – 65 148,18
EURO 44 402,87 – 59 203,82
GBP 37 367,60 – 49 823,47

(1)

32 x 23 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Johannesburg.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Painted in evocative monochrome hues, Untitled is an intimate work by Lisa Brice, created in 2005 during a formative period in her practice.

Rendered with tender, searching brushwork in oil on paper, this modestly scaled portrait likely depicts the artist herself, its probing gaze capturing the introspective tone that came to define Brice’s work at the time. The work carries an emotional weight far beyond its size. It is a portrait that seems to hum with the vulnerability of the inner child – an echo of innocence held in suspension.

The figure’s eyes, wide and unflinching, are portals into another world: haunting, luminous, and impossibly still. There is no performance here, only presence. With one side of the face in gentle shadow, and the other softly illuminated, Brice captures the delicate tension between self-awareness and self-concealment. The mouth, barely parted, hints at untold thoughts or unspoken truths, as if the subject hovers between confession and silence.

The piece dates from the same period in which Brice was developing her acclaimed Night Vision exhibition, first shown at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 2006. That body of work explored themes of femininity, identity, and voyeurism through nocturnal scenes and blue-and green-toned female figures. This portrait, though quieter and more restrained, resonates with the same interiority and painterly atmosphere, suggesting a personal undercurrent to the themes Brice would go on to explore at a larger scale and with increasing complexity. Here, the narrative is inward, private, and emotionally raw. It is less a declaration than a quiet remembering.

This early and deeply personal portrait is a rare and intimate glimpse into Brice’s formative inner world. With its emotional immediacy, it is a work of vulnerability and truth – an enduring image that lingers long after the first encounter.

Marelize van Zyl

COLLECTOR'S NOTE:

• In March 2025, Lisa Brice’s, After Embah (2018) sold for £ 5.41 million in London, setting a new world auction record. The sale surpassed the previous record of $3.16 million for No Bare Back, after Embah (2017) in New York in 2021, indicating a 100% rise in the prices for the artist at auction.
• Aspire Art sold Brice’s Untitled (Spook) (2005) for R 1,23 million, setting the current South African auction record for the artist.
• In October 2023, another painting from Lisa Brice’s Night Vision series titled A2 (2005) sold for £133,750 in London.
• Brice’s work formed part of Capturing the Moment at Tate Modern, London in 2023- 2024. She was also included in Between the Islands at Tate Britain (2021–22)
• Her solo exhibition LIVES and WORKS was presented at Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Paris, marking the artist’s debut in France in 2023
• Major institutional solo exhibitions are Smoke and Mirrors at KM21, Kunstmuseum Den Haag in 2020, and Art Now: Lisa Brice at Tate Britain in 2018.
• In 2022, Brice formed part of the exhibitions: A Century of the Artist's Studio 1920- 2020 at Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Women Painting Women at the Modern
  Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas.
• Important literature references include Vitamin P2: Anthology of International Painting published by Phaidon in 2011, SOUTH AFRICAN ART NOW by Sue Williamson in 2009 and 10 Years 100 Artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa, edited by Sophie Perryer in 2004.

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the Tate Modern, London; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Standard Bank Corporate Collection, Johannesburg; SABC Collection, Johannesburg; Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town; Gallery Frank Haenel, Frankfurt; X Museum, Beijing and the Sindika Dokolo - African Collection of Contemporary Art, Luanda.