Provenance

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, 2014.

Private Collection.

Notes

Lyndi Sales is best known for her arresting collage works, hand-woven textiles and sculptural installations that explore the intersection of art and science. Drawn to fragile materials such as paper, fine rubber, fabric, Perspex and – in this work – holographic paper, her works frequently explore how human subjectivity is expressed visually, and how this ambiguity reflects “the body's primordial involvement and understanding of the world”.¹ At the time this work was produced Sales was especially interested in phenomenological philosophy and frequently referenced astronomical imagery. The present lot forms part of an extended series of works initiated in 2009 after the artist was diagnosed with an astigmatic condition known as “ghosting” caused by corneal irregularities. Holographic paper, an embossed paper coated with a microscopic layer of aluminium that is sealed in lacquer, provided Sales with an “appropriate medium to work with in that focus is complex and the surface is suggestive of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane”.² Unlike the notionally objective data recorded by satellites or telescopes, Sales views these holographic works act as “subjective focusing devices to perhaps see differently”.³ Curator Thembinkosi Goniwe included a materially similar work in the South African Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. “Sales constructs aesthetic objects whose geometric and symbolic shapes become visual sites for imagining a world different from our social reality,” he wrote. ⁴

¹ Kristine Kronjé (2012) Litnet, Gazing into Deep Skies: Lyndi Sales discusses her new show with Kristine Kronjé, online, https://www.litnet.co.za/gazing-into-deep-skies-lyndi-sales-discusses-her-new-show-with-kristine-kronj/, accessed 4 March 2025.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Excerpted in Lyndi Sales (2012) Lyndi Sales: Selected Works, WHATIFTHEWORLD: Cape Town, page 10.

Exhibited

Galerie Maria Lund, Paris, Passive Surveillance, 2011, an earlier example exhibited.

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, BMW Pavilion, curated by Ernestine White-Mifetu, 2014.