Artworks tell the story of our lives. They comment on society. They document the times. The artworks of Diane Victor, one of South Africa’s greatest living artists, are a no-holds-barred mirror of the reality we inhabit, gliding from horror and violence to beauty, frailty and freedom.
On 21 May, Victor was honored alongside over 12,000 graduates. Victor, who obtained her BA in Fine Arts with a focus on printmaking from Wits University. Victor significantly impacted many young artists, particularly during her thirty years as a lecturer at the University of Pretoria. For 33 years, her distinctive teaching approach inspired students to explore their own creative vulnerabilities thoroughly. “I love teaching,” Victor says. “Students place tremendous faith in you—granting access to the deepest realms of their creativity—it’s both exhilarating and humbling simultaneously.”
Diane Victor, (born 1964, in Witbank, South Africa) is a South African artist and print maker, known for her satirical and social commentary of contemporary South African politics.
She received her BA Fine Arts degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1986.
From 1990 to the present, Victor has lectured part-time, teaching drawing and printmaking at various South African institutions including the University of Pretoria, Wits Technikon, Pretoria Technikon, Open Window Academy, Vaal Triangle Technikon, the University of the Witwatersrand, Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
Her works are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, among others.
Victor’s work uses the figure, often her own self-portrait, to create complex narratives relating to contemporary South Africa and to the more global crisis of war, corruption and violence in both the public, political and in private life. – “Little History” Proferssor Karen von Veh, interview with Diane Victor 2018
Title: The Middleman
Medium: Single colour lithograph
Paper size: 66 x 50.5 cm
Image size: 50 x 35 cm
Edition size: 20
Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox and is a common subject of Japanese folklore. Kitsune possess magical powers, have long life and are highly intelligent. They are shape shifters and often transform themselves into beautiful young women.
Diane Victor worked on this print in 2014 while battling a genetic kidney disorder which runs in her family. In early 2015 she received a kidney transplant after a lengthy and stressful wait to get permission from the Department of Health.
Crocodiles kill their prey by dragging it under water and weighing it down until it drowns. A collective noun for doctors is usually a doctrine, or a dose of doctors. Victor has come up with her own: a hyena skin of doctors. Employing the book advantage references legal trials in South Africa.
Title: Kitsune, boating in a storm
Medium: Single colour lithograph
Paper size: 31 x 40 cm
Image size: 25 x 34 cm
Edition size: 30
Works by Diane Victor. Left: “Bad thoughts,” 2017, smoke drawing on foam core. Right: “Thinking of you (Cultural memory),” 2017, smoke on paper. (Images courtesy of the artist and David Krut Projects)
