By third year I was given to figurative painting, oil on canvas, with an interest in human physiognomy. I undertook an intensive tour of European galleries during the break before fourth year, to view the actual paintings studied in our three-year history of art course. In all the unsuspected revelations I experienced, the genius of men like Roger van der Wyden, Jan van Eyck, Caravaggio and Goya struck me as the most exceptional, their draughtsmanship and techniques the most difficult to master. In all three art schools I attended, abstract painting was favoured. It was the time of Neo Expressionism. I was already out on a limb in my pursuit of verisimilitude and experimenting with the image, but this exposure cemented my choice of direction.

 

In Europe, on my 21st birthday, my spoil for the day was visiting the Prado. I experienced a mind-altering epiphany looking at Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Children (1823). I was unsullied, young and impressionable, transformed and bewitched by Goya’s genius portrayal of evil. My physical reaction was bewildering. I was frozen by adrenaline and panicked, my heart racing with fear, at the mere sight of a painted image. Throughout this trip, I found myself drawn to images of man’s inhumanity to man, almost exclusively perpetuated by men, illustrated by genius men in the brilliant mediums of paint they too created, subsequently analysed by men. I wondered how as a woman I could be part of this world, other than as an observer. Even in galleries showing contemporary work, there was slim representation by female painters in the mid ‘70s.

 

The female equivalent of male horror in painting is often an expression of angst. I sidestepped both by rendering images of bloodshed and torment which did not involve cruelty or anxiety. These were images of creation – birth – the birth of my daughter in October of my final year. The two Birth Paintings (1975) were my response, as a woman, to Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Children. I was still 21 when they were completed. These paintings were worked from photographs taken during the birth. I was intrigued by the American Photorealists. With the exception of Chuck Close’s large self-portraits, these predominantly male artists focused on detached reflections of urban settings. In these paintings I saw myself as a female Photorealist, responding with personal subject matter, reflecting the exclusively female experience of birth. This was my first feminist riposte expressed through painting, a topic not yet addressed in this medium in South Africa.

 

During my master’s degree, I questioned the acceptance of the limitation of the picture frame, influenced by the Modernist’s obsession with the flatness of the picture plane. I did a painting on both sides of the canvas depicting the same image, lending a spatial quality to the work (see Passage of Time in gallery), and a painting comprised of one image divided into a diptych (see Four Generations in gallery). In the latter each painting reads differently when the paintings are separated, as opposed to being seen as a continuum of the same narrative. I chose as subject matter that which intrigued me most – my child.

 

After completing my master’s degree, I was accepted into St. Martins School of Art in London. I was told my acceptance, as one of ten students, was clinched by paintings involving birth and motherhood, seen as addressing timeless and universal themes. One student from the course was invited to stay another year, if they so wished. I was chosen and accepted. In this second year one of my most valuable experiences was doing copies of paintings of my choice in the National Gallery, London.

 

I expected the Great City would open my eyes to what and how to paint. Instead, it unveiled the most valuable life lesson. The only magic is in doing.