Untitled

Medium

Woodcut

Dimensions

39 × 49 cm (w × h)

This work forms another part of Solomon Siko’s collection of prints, with focus on beauty. It has a wistful quality, the lone figure standing in the open, looking out to the hills beyond. The warm palette invokes a distinctly African atmosphere: the amber, ochre and sienna tones reminiscent of a dusty evening in the veld. Here, the barbed wire becomes another flowing line, echoing the shape of the tree branches and the curve of the mountains. It is an ambiguous image; one absorbs its aesthetic quality - the lulling beauty of the lines and colors invoking a harmonious, tranquil mood - which is then conflicted by the presence of the barbed wire, and the reference it makes to segregation. The figure becomes a captive, caught behind the dividing line, unable to break loose from this empty landscape, condemned to a life of loneliness and isolation. However, it is this intriguing mix of inferences that enriches the print, one is caught between admiring and despising what it depicts.