Goodman Gallery Cape Town 23 June – 21 July 2018
Which Hunt? presents visceral new work in which Diane Victor grapples with South Africa’s gender-based violence epidemic and considers the complex social structures that underpin patriarchal power relations worldwide.
Victor does not claim to speak for all victims of the history of violence against women. She makes the point that the phenomenon is not new, but rather that ongoing scourge is currently being paid much greater attention. In this exhibition, Victor examines the pervasive effects of blame culture in society alongside depictions of women who have been made to bear responsibility for the abuse inflicted on them.
Diane Victor (b. 1964 in Witbank, South Africa) has established herself as a major figure in the South African and International art communities and is renowned for her expert printmaking and draughtsmanship. Victor positions herself within the South African art scene through her bold confrontations with difficult and at times taboo subject matter. Her large scale drawings and etchings demonstrate a command of mark-making, which she uses to render her subjects in affecting detail. At times, her work seems to pose challenges to social and political life in contemporary South Africa, considering issues of corruption, violence and an unequal power distribution.
Having received her BA Fine Arts Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, with a major in Printmaking, and graduating with distinction – Victor has gone on to win various prestige awards including the Sasol New Signatures Award in 1987. In 1988, Victor became the youngest recipient of the prestigious Volkskas Atelier Award which granted her a ten-month stay at the Cité Internationale des Artes in Paris, France. Over this period, Victor was able to work collaboratively with other experienced printmakers and to observe and reflect on a society very different from her own.
Victor has exhibited at numerous venues around South Africa and internationally, some of which include the UNISA Gallery, Fried Contemporary, MoMA New York, Faulconer Gallery, The Highpoint Center for printmaking, The Gus Fisher Gallery, National Museum of Contemporary Art Oslo, Yale University Art Gallery, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, and Australia and Adelaide Central Gallery. Victor’s work is part of a number of important collections, including Sasol, Pretoria Art Museum, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Durban Art Museum and Santam.
Since 1990, Victor has been a lecturer, teaching Fine Art, at various South African institutions including the University of Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology, Open Window Academy, the University of the Witwatersrand, Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
Victor lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. At present, she is a senior Fine Art lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Visual Art.
Download full CV