Celebrating the women activists of South Africa’s apartheid – who often go unrecognised by historical record and mainstream media – Sue Williamson has created these almost shrine-like effigies in their honour. The central image in each piece is a photo-etching with additional etching techniques like aquatints and drawing through hardground. Some of the imagery on the frames is derived from African textiles, with additional smaller images added in.
The backgrounds behind the centrally place portrait reflect details and key events in each woman’s life. The layered silkscreened borders around the portraits add further details, and also refer to the way people in the squatter camps and townships elevated family snapshots to small artworks by framing these images with coloured paper cut with zig zag scissors.
