Siopis, Penny

In this large-scale work, Siopis uses a collagist approach to explore South Africa’s history of resource extraction. A landscape of gold and diamond mining is framed by theatrical figures and drapery, linking labour, hierarchy and spectacle. Dense imagery conveys scale, tools and the human effort embedded within these historic sites.

A veritable history of the land and the work done there, is captured by Penny Siopis‘s magisterial Al Fresco in which she uses collage to focus on South Africa’s history of resource extraction. It uses illustrations from old history school textbooks of early gold mining on the Witswatersrand, as well as opencast diamond mining at Kimberley where, from 1871 to 1914, some 50,000 miners excavated a huge hole in the earth using shovels, ladders, wheelbarrows, tramcars, tubs, hoisting ropes and hauling gear.