Notes

Judith Mason burst onto the art scene in Johannesburg very soon after her graduation from Wits in 1960. Her extraordinary draughtsmanship and haunting imagery has made her work sought after for public and private collections alike. She is represented in all the major collections in South Africa, and has works in international collections.

Bearer is painted on an antique stretcher, used in the mines, which reminded Mason of an ancient fayum coffin from Egypt. The stretcher invokes the memory of the miners who were rescued or died and those who carried them, but the painted image reveals the women who bore them as children. The woman’s womb is rendered as a bowl of sacrificial blood. The date, in Roman numerals (2/12/1993), remains somewhat enigmatic, but frames the work in the run-up to the general election of 1994, calling attention to the violence at the time in the lead up to democracy.

Provenance

Donated by the artist