Penny Siopis

A well-established artist and noted academic, Penny Siopis is particularly interested in the ways that national history
and personal memory intersect in visual narratives of the South African social climate. She studied BA Fine Arts at Rhodes University as well as a post-graduate course in painting at Portsmouth Polytechnic, England, before taking up a lecturing position at the Natal Technikon in Durban. In 1984 she moved to Johannesburg and since 1995 has lectured
in the Department of Fine Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. Until early 2010, she held the position
of Associate Professor in Fine Arts but has since moved to Cape Town to work as a full-time artist.

Siopis became very well known for her ‘banquet’ paintings (particularly Melancholia, 1986) and her ironical history
paintings in the 1980s, the latter focusing on questions of race and gender representation in public history.
During the 1990′s she extended her range of media to include monumental installations, printmaking and video.
She is particularly interested in the intersection of biography and autobiography in narrating aspects of South African
history through film. Her later bodies of works often deal with concerns of shame, violence and sexuality.

Siopis has exhibited extensively both locally and abroad. In 2002 Siopis had an exhibition in Johannesburg entitled Pinky – Pinky and other Xeni, a series of hand printed lithographs in which Siopis explores the psychological and mythical terrain
of South African teenage girls. Subsequent to this show, Siopis worked on the Shame series and Siestog prints.

Text:  David Krut

AVAILABLE WORK

Get well soon, Sugar lift aquatint, burnishing, scraping with photocopy  380mm x 455mm

Hush little baby, Sugar lift aquatint, burnishing, scraping with photocopy  380mm x 455mm

ARCHIVED WORKS

Umtatarama, Lithograph  430mm x 500mm