We sit down with internationally acclaimed South African artist Mary Sibande

Perhaps you’ve been confronted by one of her snarling red dogs, or seen a poignant portrait of a domestic worker dressed in Victorian garb, eyes closed to the world… Visual artist Mary Sibande has taken the local and international art scene by storm with

Last year, photographer, painter and sculptor Mary Sibande was awarded the coveted Smithsonian African Arts Award. She also won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2013, and represented South Africa in 2011 at the Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious events on the international art calendar, with an exhibit of an enormous installation that was part of her series Long Live the Dead Queen.

Highly acclaimed by both the international and local art communities, Mary was raised by her grandmother in the small town of Barberton, 36km from Nelspruit. Her mom, a domestic worker, worked far away, and her father was in the South African army. Mary got to know him only as a teenager. Even so, she describes her childhood as having been ‘perfect’.

‘I had everything I needed, and I went to a good high school which was multiracial. Many families couldn’t afford to send their kids there but I was fortunate that my mum was able to. I guess that also pushed me in a certain direction.’

It was only towards the end of high school, says Mary, that she realised art was something you could make a career out of.

‘There were no museums and galleries in the town I grew up in; that was foreign to me. I’d make things out of clay. My first object was a dog – you know those ceramic dogs? My grandmother had a set of them, so I made a dog like that. Family members said I was talented, but I didn’t think much of it at the time.’ Initially, she had planned to go into fashion. ‘I thought I was going to be a fashion designer, but I ended up going for my second option. Fortunately, I can now marry the two worlds – fashion and fine art aren’t far off from each other.’

In 2001, Mary moved to Johannesburg to live with her mom while she was studying, graduating with

a Diploma in Fine Arts from Witwatersrand Technikon and a BTech degree from the University of Johannesburg.

‘I was mostly doing painting and I got good marks for it,’ she says. One of her lecturers saw her potential and encouraged her to try other media as well. ‘She believed in what I did,’ says Mary, ‘and encouraged me to push myself. A few years later, I took sculpture as a fourth-year subject.’

Mary credits her entry into the art world to the pioneering female artists who came before her.

‘The female visual artists before my generation worked extra hard and paved the way for me. Some of them are being recognised only now; they died poor. For me it was easy; these women were the stepping stones.’

There was also a gap in the market for new voices, she adds modestly.

‘At the time it felt like there was only one major artist around: William Kentridge. And then there I was, along with the likes of Nicholas Hlobo and other up-andcoming artists.’

Long Live the Dead Queen, the body of work Mary is arguably most famous for, is based on a domestic worker named Sophie, whom she regards as her alter ego.

‘Sophie is an avatar that tells a story of black women in South Africa,’ she explains. ‘If she’s not your aunt, she’s your mother or your sister, or the lady who cleans your home. She’s someone a lot of people can relate to. And of course, drawing closer to my life, it’s about stories my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother used to tell me. The women in my family were all domestic workers. It’s very personal. I know her. She’s my family.

‘These women didn’t choose to be domestic workers. It was the only occupation available to them because of their gender and race. There’s nothing wrong with being a domestic worker per se, but in this country, people were pushed into servitude. Children often didn’t have a relationship with their parents because the father was the gardener and the mother, the domestic worker.’

When it came to telling Sophie’s story, Mary felt conflicted.

‘For me to use my grandmother’s perspective, I’d be perpetuating the very thing I was trying to dismiss.’

So she decided to be the photographer and the subject, and portray all of these women herself. ‘Think Quentin Tarantino acting in his own films.’

While she’s known mainly for her sculptures, Mary loves working in photographic print.

‘Some of my artworks are photographs, where I dress as the character I’ve developed. So I photograph in character and perform in front of the camera, in character.’

Her fashion designer dreams may have faded, but her love of fashion hasn’t – when it came to dressing Sophie, Mary was in her element. She recalls domestic workers having worn blue and white, but she also dressed Sophie in blue to represent the idea of a blue-collar job.

‘When I was thinking about how to dress Sophie I opted for very thick blue canvas but chose patterns that were over the top, like Victorian gowns and evening wear,’ she says.

Sophie’s eyes are always closed, which Mary says is the character denying her reality.

‘She enters another realm where she can dream and become whatever she wants.’

The neutral background in the photos reinforces this. ‘One can’t tell where the figure is… she’s in her own world. She makes herself important.’

Her body of work is divided into colour-based themes, and after her ‘blue period’, Mary moved to purple, with the highly acclaimed The Purple Shall Govern.

‘This was more about how I see the world and how I look at myself as a black woman born in apartheid South Africa in 1982,’ she explains. ‘Purple also has its own meaning: in Europe, the rich, the clergy and royalty wore the colour as it was the most expensive pigment.’

The name of this work is taken from the Freedom Charter, which states that ‘the people shall govern’, and highlights the way in which race plays a role in the lives of South Africans. Mary took inspiration from a march that took place in Cape Town in 1989, during which apartheid police laced water cannons with purple dye. Protesters were covered in purple so they were easier to identify in order to be arrested.

‘Colour tells you whether you’re confident or not, whether you sleep on a bed or a floor, live in a fancy house or squatter camp. It shouldn’t be like that.’ Mary then moved on to red, with In the Midst of Chaos, There is Opportunity, on display at the

Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

‘With red, I question everything South African, from politics to post-apartheid SA. In Barberton, there’s a statue of Jock of the Bushveld outside the town hall. I put that in the work. The dogs are red – the Zulu expression “ukwatile uphenduke inja

ebomvu” translates as “she turned into a red dog”. If someone is angry, they turn into a red dog – it’s the epitome of anger. At some point, I noticed that people were burning down things every day; South Africans are angry. I wanted to explore that anger, with the dog as my departure point. I grew up seeing Jock every day when I went to town… this kind, loyal dog – loyal to the master.

‘The piece tells you that anger is a dangerous animal. I was reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War when I was busy with this piece. There’s a poem that talks about war and says you must confuse the enemy. All warfare is based on deception. If you are far, they must think you’re near; if you’re orderly they must think you’re all over the place. In the military, everything must be in a straight line but this work is just complete chaos… the dogs, soldiers and horses are all facing in different directions.’

Mary has made a point of featuring horses in her work and has used them in every colour period thus far.

‘In the blue period, the first horse I made had Sophie riding it,’ she says. ‘I was looking at equestrian statues: very few depict women. In South Africa, it would be really amazing if we removed the white generals, who were put on pedestals, and put women like Sophie, a domestic worker, on these horses.

My second body of work had child-like horses, and my third horse is at the Zeitz MOCAA. I see these animals as timekeepers in my work. Before I move to another work I make a horse, to look back at what I have done.

‘In the next four years I plan to do another horse. As in the [story of the] Apocalypse, four horses will emerge. But an apocalypse doesn’t have to destroy; it can actually build. Sometimes destruction is needed in order to bring about change.’

There’s no doubt that South Africa is replete with inspiring material for any artist, but which artists inform her work? ‘I admire a wide range of artists,’ she says. ‘When I first saw sculptor Juan Muñoz’s work, I was like: “Actually, I’m going to stop painting and start making lifesized figures like he does.”’

Kara Walker, a contemporary American artist, also inspires her. ‘She makes flat silhouettes out of paper and sticks them on the wall. They look like murals. This is where I drew on the flat black silhouette. I thought of making Sophie flat and black because she’s not a real person – she’s a shadow; she’s my shadow.

‘I borrowed the language of performance from local artist Tracy Rose – perfoming is a way of telling a story in movement; it’s about using different languages to tell a particular story. And I look to the work of my partner, artist Lawrence Lemaoana, who manipulates photographs. There’s also Noria Mabasa, whose artwork is based on dreams. Sophie is a dreamer: she closes her eyes and denies her reality; I borrowed that from Noria.’

Mary and Lawrence, who lectures at UNISA, have a twoyear-old son who ‘plays a big part in the way I think and how I live my life’, she says. She also had to learn to juggle family and work.

‘I’m more disciplined in terms of time now. Before, I’d work until I was tired. Now, like any working mom, I have to plan ahead!’

HER MAJESTY, QUEEN SOPHIE SOLD FOR R193 256 AT THE PRESTIGIOUS STRAUSS & CO AUCTION IN NOVEMBER 2017.