PENNY SIOPIS (B. 1953)

Penny Siopis began her career in the early 1980s, working across painting, film, installation and photography. Seeking to explore what she terms the ‘poetics of vulnerability’, her work has examined such themes as shame, violence, sexuality and grief.
Heat and Dust exemplifies Siopis’ practice of combining fluid ink and viscous glue, inviting the medium to be an active agent in the making of the work. The glue and ink have set to leave the translucent embodiment of a horizontal, prone figure in the bottom right corner of the picture plane. The figure is a deep crimson, standing out against the mottled, earthy whirlwind of ochre, tan and umber markings on the background of the white canvas.
Born in Vryburg, South Africa in 1953, Siopis has had major solo exhibitions at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2018) and the Freud Museum, London (2005). Her work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020), Tate Modern (2018-19) and the British Museum, London (2016). She has taken part in the biennales of Taipei (2016), Venice (South African Pavilion, 2013) and Sydney (2010), among others. Siopis lives and works in Cape Town, and is represented by Stevenson, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Amsterdam.