(Penny Siopis. Pic by
John Hogg)
Visual artist Penny Siopis was awarded a Lifetime
Achievement Award for her contribution to the arts at the 19th annual Arts
& Culture Trust (ACT) Awards, held at Sun International’s The Maslow Hotel
in Johannesburg in October.
Lifetime Achievement Award winners, who are nominated and
selected by the current and previous ACT Trustees, are individuals that the
Awards’ sponsors are proud to acknowledge for the impact they have had on the
South African creative industry.
Since 1975, Siopis has been exhibiting both locally and
internationally. She says she is thrilled to have received this Award; “It is a
wonderful recognition of my creative work, as an artist, but also a teacher.”
Throughout her career Siopis has won a variety of awards
including the Volkskas Atelier Award and the Vita Art Now award. She says she
has had a “wonderfully varied career” and that singling out a single pinnacle
is an arduous task. “My solo show at the Freud Museum in London in 2005 was a
unique and deep experience of working with ideas about the relationship between
the psychological and the social, public and private, individual and
collective, memory and history, in many different media.”
Well represented in collections both locally and abroad, Siopis
became well known for her baroque banquet and history paintings. She used
random objects in her work, which commented on colonialism, gender, and
discriminatory practices of all kinds.
She is particularly interested in the intersection of
biography and autobiography in narrating aspects of South African history
through film, and the questions raised by the changes in local history. These
concerns, centred on history and memory, have led her to become an important
analyst of race and gender issues in the country.
She believes arts and culture are central to South African
society on a primal level. “They offer a way to imagine in concrete form, to
express what it feels like to be an individual and a community, to show what it
is to be human.”
And to her, being an artist is not a vocation but rather a standard
of living. “When you become an artist it is not a job, it is a way of life, a
way of seeing the world always in new and surprising ways, even when the world
seems old.”
Currently an Associate Professor in Fine Arts at UCT’s Michaelis
School of Fine Art and the chairperson of the department's governing committee,
Siopis’ advice to young artists is to be committed to their beliefs but also be
open to the world around them. “Take risks. Be resilient. Don't be afraid to
show your vulnerabilities,” she concludes.
Tobie Badenhorst, the Head of Group Sponsorships and Cause
Marketing at Nedbank says this Award, as well as the other Lifetime Achievement
Awards presented on the night, are important nods to deserving figures in the
South African arts world. “Through the Lifetime Achievement Awards we are
reminded of the passion and dedication of South Africa’s renowned artists, who
through their talent and works of wonder continue to shift the socioeconomic
narrative in our country. As a bank that is committed to the development of
South African arts and culture, we are humbled by their commitment and continue
to celebrate their work.”
The 19th annual ACT Awards was hosted by Sun International
in association with the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) and is supported by
the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), the Dramatic, Artistic
and Literary Rights Organisation (DALRO), Media24 Books, the Nedbank Arts
Affinity, JTI, Creative Feel, Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) and the
Distell Foundation.
For more information about the Arts & Culture Trust
(ACT) visit www.act.org.za
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