Notes

This large, square, incised wooden panel, so characteristic of Cecil Skotnes's work, was most probably produced in the early 1970s at the time when Skotnes had been commissioned to undertake the large mural for Ciba-Geigy for their Johannesburg offices in 1971. Both works are characterised by Skotnes's tendency to simplify the human form into a series of bold, flat coloured shapes in contrast to the delicate filigrees and traceries in his panels of the 1960s.

In Encounter, a group of five or six vertical figures interact, while a group of syncopated shapes and forms, with stylised details, imply heads, breasts, torsos and legs. The stylised faces with striking eyes and vertical nose-like accents stare out at us in an imposing manner. The intense vermillion, ochre, white and red is amplified by the dark whittled surface of the background panel. The applied pigments have a textured roughness which is characteristic of Skotnes's inclusion of marble dust into the paint giving the surface a patina like quality associated with the application of significant pigments in ritual art. The inventive physiognomy in Skotnes's figures alludes to interest in the abstract rendition of the human body as seen in much traditional African sculpture which he collected, was particularly interested in and was to influence his work throughout his life.

Karel Nel

Provenance

Purchased directly from the artist and thence by descent.