Talk:Judith Mason

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moved unsourced CV laundry list off main space WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Select Collections in South Africa

 * South African National Gallery, Cape Town
 * George IV Gallery, Port Elizabeth
 * Durban Art Gallery, Kwa Zulu
 * Ann Bryant Museum, East London
 * Tatham Gallery, Pietermaritzburg
 * William Humphries Gallery, Kimberley
 * Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria
 * Rembrandt Foundation, Pretoria
 * Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg
 * Mpumalanga Legislative Collection, Nelspruit
 * Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein
 * Sasol Corporate Art Collection, Johannesburg
 * Engen, Cape Town
 * La Motte Museum, Franschhoek, Cape Winelands, South Africa
 * Telkom SA, Johannesburg
 * University of South Africa
 * Anglo American Collection
 * Anglovaal Collection
 * Sandton Municipal Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
 * Spier Art Collection, Stellenbosch, South Africa
 * Rand Afrikaans University
 * Constitutional Court, Johannesburg
 * JCI Collection, Johannesburg
 * Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg
 * Wits Art Museum (WAM)

moved unsourced material on "philosophy" off main space
moved unsourced material on "philosophy" off main space. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:40, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Philosophy
Mason was politically aware and was motivated by a strong social conscience. Her work is informed by people, creatures, events and sometimes works of poetry, that touched or deeply disturbed her. Her images run the gamut from expressionist through representational, humorous and starkly symbolic. The history, mythology and ritual of Christianity and the eastern religions provided a fertile fund of inspiration for her work. Mason felt that formalised theology has destroyed the spiritually-nourishing mythological character of primitive religion.

"Mason's pieces are sometimes imbued with lyrical and poetic overtones, and sometimes informed by the poetry of Christopher Smart and Wilfred Owen, another important feature of her work is the synthesis she established between beauty and ugliness. A beautifully drawn or painted face often gives way to a gaping, snarling monster ... The beauty/ugliness, or abjection, dichotomy in Mason's work is no other than an expression of how awful pain is. Mason also stated that "All the arts are forms of play."

"The Man Who Sang and The Woman Who Kept Silent' (colloquially known as 'The Blue Dress'); comprising three paintings and a mixed media sculpture, have together come to constitute the signature piece of the Constitutional Court's collection. Justice Albie Sachs considers Judith Mason's "The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent" (1998) to be "one of the great pieces of art in the world of the late 20th century"

This piece was inspired by two stories Mason heard on the radio at the time of the Truth and Reconciliation hearings. They told of the execution of two liberation movement cadres by the security police. One was Harold Sefola, who as Mason relates, "asked permission to sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika" before he was electrocuted; the other was Phila NdwandWe, "who was tortured and kept naked for ten days" and then assassinated in a kneeling position. As the TRC found, before NdwandWe was killed, she "fashioned a pair of panties for herself out of a scrap of blue plastic." This moved Mason to make a dress of blue plastic bags, inscribed with text beginning: "Sister, a plastic bag may not be the whole armour of God, but you were wrestling with flesh and blood, and against powers, against the rulers of darkness …"

"I paint in order to make sense of my life, to manipulate various chaotic fragments of information and impulse into some sort of order, through which I can glimpse a hint of meaning. I am an agnostic humanist possessed of religious curiosity who regards making artworks as akin to alchemy. To use inert matter on an inert surface to convey real energy and presence seems to me a magical and privileged way of living out my days". Judith Mason, 2004

"Hyenas like artists, are scavengers prowling on the edge of society. I love hyaenas because of their other-worldly whooping, their ungainliness and their "bad hair" (I share the latter two characteristics). I also regard the animal as a very apt image of the 'id' in opposition to the ego and the super-ego, the monkey on my back. In the three lithographs I have depicted The Muse by Day as a Hyaena in guinea fowl's clothing, the spots as disguise or drag to celebrate the gift of mimicry. In the Muse by Night I have concentrated on the animal as far-seeing, seer-like with the coat of spots as shaman's eyes. In Muse Amused I have tried to celebrate a generally despised animal having an existential guffaw." Judith Mason, 2006

Creative Arts
Visual Arts Creative Arts Wookbook 41.150.33.208 (talk) 09:26, 12 October 2022 (UTC)