Socially critical, not necessarily dark, and free of subtlety – Diane Victor on art and catharsis

Diane Victor is an established South African artist and lecturer, currently exhibiting solo at the University of the Free State. She has more than 33 years of solo exhibiting experience, locally and internationally.

This exhibition was preceded by the resounding success of her captivating exhibitions earlier this year at Spier Wine Farm in the Western Cape and at Strauss & Co in Johannesburg.

Bongo Mei: What inspired the piece The Eight Marys?

Diane Victor: In 2004 I was invited by Hollard and Stevenson Gallery to create works for the exhibition Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art. It [The Eight Marys] was exhibited at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in 2004. This exhibition showcased a number of contemporary South African artists.

Two venues were selected and the artists were invited to view these spaces and create artworks for them. One was the Cathedral of St John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan, and the other was the Museum for African Art (now known as The Africa Center) in Queens, New York.

After viewing the spaces, I wanted to make a work that dealt with the secular, real-world living for the cathedral (and The Eight Marys were made for the cathedral), while I created Minder, Mater, Martyr for the museum.

The drawings for The Eight Marys were done to depict an alternative imagined life for the Virgin Mary. A young unmarried woman who falls pregnant and in the context of what could have happened – what if she had an abortion and was angry? She was given a contemporary, alternative life. When these works were displayed at Spier in February 2023, it was the first time I’d seen them since making them in 2004. They were made as site-specific artworks for the cathedral – they fitted into the windows, four storeys up.

At the end, as seen in the artwork, she is a frustrated old woman in a wheelchair, whose son was taken away from her.

The intention was for the viewer to think of that story from a real-life point of view as opposed to the idealised woman who cooks and cleans for her family.

Minder, Mater, Martyr are the depictions of St Sebastian, Christ and John the Baptist, but subverted and repositioned as female roles. They were displayed in the secular [section] at the Museum for African Art.

BM: When it’s said that your work is dark, does that relate to the appearance or content of the artwork?

DV: I would say that my work is socially critical, not necessarily dark. And free of subtlety. Having works that are shocking and free of subtlety, and have a sense of cynicism to them, is a conscious act and part of the context of my work – to make people think and consider and reimagine.

Diane Victor working on stone at Atelier le Grand Village. (Photo: Supplied)