Born in Vryburg, South Africa, 1953
Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa
Training:
1974: BAFA, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
1975: MAFA, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
1978-9: Postgraduate Course in Painting, Portsmouth
Polytechnic, U.K.
Recent group exhibitions:
1994: 5th Havana Biennal
1994: Displacements: South African works on Paper, 1984-94,
Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, USA
1993: Venice Biennale
Recent one artist exhibitions:
1994: "Private Views", Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg
1990: "History Paintings", Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg,
South Africa
1987: "Pictures within Pictures", Goodman Gallery,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Recent articles or books written on the artist's work:
1992: Elizabeth Rankin, The Baby and the Bathwater -
Meaning, Medium and Motif in the Work of Penelope Siopis.
1989: Sue Williamson, Resistance Art in South Africa, Cape
Town: David Phillip, pp20-23
Works
Hush-Hush: Collaborator
mixed media assemblage
Camera Obscura: White Venuses
(1994-1995) multimedia installation
Dora
(1987) hand-coloured lithograph
Private collection
Siopis speaks of her "attempt to try to locate race
issues (in the gender complex) in the here and now,
to face race not to efface it." (from a letter by
Siopis to Emma Beford, 15 August 1994)
In "Hush Hush:Collaborator", as with many of her works of this period, Siopis is
exploring dualities - of self / other, personal / political, pleasure
/ pain. In this case the dualities
of privilege and exploitation inherent in the
relationships between South African women are
particularly pertinent.
The installation consists of a box covered on four sides
with hair and containing the bust of a doll and a
mirror. The shorn head of the (white) doll
suggests a scenario of collaboration. The doll stares
into a mirror, looking at her refection which is
mingled with the image of Saartje Baartman, the
woman who has come to epitomise the worst racial
and gender exploitation in South African history.
The pile of refined white sugar surrounding the doll
evokes a world of excess and indulgence - a world
more familiar to South Africa's affluent (mostly
white) middle class than to a struggling working class.
In this work Siopis explores the interrelationship of
race and gender, makes reference to some of the
worst excesses of colonial and apartheid exploitation
and considers her own possible complicity in these
matrices of power and abuse.