COLLECTING INSIGHT: Top Lots from P5’26
Painting, Paper, Print, Patina & Photography
03/03/2026 General News, Timed-Online Auctions, Insights
Lot 41: Senzeni Marasela, Last Seen I, 2016
Senzeni Marasela
LEFT: Lot 39, Famous Nudes IV, 2012
RIGHT: Lot 40, Sara Baartman and Known Women, 2017
Senzeni Marasela’s practice is deeply rooted in personal and collective memory, with a particular focus on Black womanhood. Drawing on autobiography, oral history, and inherited narratives, her work often reflects on absence—especially the emotional and physical gaps created by political and familial displacement. Marasela works across a wide range of media, including drawing, painting, embroidery, photography, video, performance, and installation, frequently incorporating domestic materials such as fabric and thread to evoke care, resilience, and remembrance.
In her watercolour-on-paper works Famous Nudes IV, Sara Baartman and Known Woman, Marasela employs a restrained, almost fragile palette that underscores themes of visibility, erasure, and the historical objectification of Black women’s bodies. These works delicately confront how women are seen, named, and remembered, balancing intimacy with critical reflection.
In contrast, Last Seen I, made with red wool on canvas, introduces a tactile, corporeal material that evokes bloodlines, trauma, and continuity, transforming acts of stitching and binding into powerful gestures of mourning, endurance, and reclamation.
Senzeni Marasela has been selected to participate in the 61st International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale titled In Minor Keys by the late Koyo Kouoh.
Robert Hodgins
Robert Hodgins was a pivotal figure in South African art, celebrated for his expressive imagery and incisive engagement with power, authority, and the human condition. While best known as a painter, Hodgins’ printing practice—particularly his monotypes—offered a more spontaneous and experimental extension of his visual language.
Working directly onto the plate, he embraced the unpredictability of the process, allowing chance, gesture, and material resistance to shape the final image. His 2009 monotype Madame Glowing exemplifies this approach: the figure emerges through layered ink, rough textures, and expressive mark-making, hovering between presence and distortion. In these works, Hodgins strips the image down to its emotional core, using the immediacy of printmaking to heighten ambiguity and psychological tension. The monotype becomes a site of risk and revelation, echoing his lifelong interest in the theatrical, the grotesque, and the fragile complexities of identity.
Claudette Schreuders
LEFT: Lot 67: The Three Sisters 1, 2005
RIGHT: Lot 68: Three Sisters 3, 2005
Claudette Schreuders is celebrated for her strikingly pared-down, evocatively sculpted figures. Her practice centres on carving intimate portraits that explore identity, relationships, and social dynamics. Schreuders extends her sculptural vision into printmaking, translating the tactile presence of her forms into two-dimensional works with equal mastery.
In Three Sisters 1 & 3, she renders her figures with clarity and nuance, preserving the subtle tensions and emotional depth of her sculptures. The prints echo the solidity and introspection of the originals, creating a dialogue between medium and subject that highlights her skill in capturing human presence across form.
Guy Tillim
Lot 109: Eugenia Namukundu and Rafaela Catimba, Kunhinga, Angola, 2002
Photographer Guy Tillim is renowned for his contemplative documentary approach, exploring the social and political landscapes of post-colonial Africa. His work captures the subtle traces of history, conflict, and everyday life, often through formally composed images that reveal complex narratives. In 2002, Tillim created the Kunhinga Portraits, a seminal series documenting the lingering effects of war on communities, with intimate portrayals of individuals such as Eugenia Namukundu and Rafaela Catimba, whose lives reflect resilience amidst upheaval. Through this series, he combines observational rigour with a quiet empathy, creating a visual record that is both socially engaged and aesthetically precise
Donald Greig
Sculptor Donald Greig practice is characterised by a sensitive engagement with form, balance, and the poetic possibilities natural subjects. Working primarily in bronze, Greig is known for distilling complex ideas into pared-down, contemplative sculptures that reward close looking. In his 2001 bronze, Giraffes, the elongated forms are both literal and lyrical, capturing the quiet elegance and alert stillness of the animals, while subtly exploring themes of harmony, vulnerability, and coexistence.
Through careful modelling and surface treatment, Greig allows material and subject to speak with restraint rather than monumentality. His work often occupies a space between observation and metaphor, using sculptural simplicity to evoke tenderness, humour, and a deep respect for the natural world.
Ricky Dayaloyi
Ricky Dyaloyi works are grounded in a social realist approach, using figuration to confront lived experience, injustice, and collective memory. His practice often focuses on marginalised communities, where moments of grief, resilience, and quiet dignity are rendered with unflinching honesty. The emotionally charged painting Mourning exemplifies Dyaloyi’s ability to translate personal loss into a shared social language, capturing the weight of sorrow through restrained colour and expressive gesture. Rather than dramatise suffering, he allows stillness and intimacy to convey depth, positioning painting as an act of witness and empathy within contemporary South African society.
Don't Miss These Masterworks on Paper
Explore the intimate world of South African Art History through exceptional works on paper. This selection features Alexis Preller’s vibrant, imaginative sketches, Dumile Feni’s expressive, emotive drawings, and Maurice van Essche’s dynamic studies that reveal the energy behind his canvases.
Lot 42: Alexis Preller, Two figures
Each piece offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s process—moments of experimentation, vision, and refinement captured in pencil, ink, and wash. Appreciate the immediacy and intimacy of these works, where every line and gesture tells a story, making them indispensable additions to any discerning collection.
Lot 45: Dumile Feni, Bull in motion
Lot 46: Maurice van Essche Fishermen and boat
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P5'26: Painting, Paper, Print, Patina & Photography
19 February - 3 March 2026
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