Notes

This work, Totem Figure, relates to a series of tall elongated anthropomorphic works engraved on hardwood planks that characterised Cecil Skotnes's work of the mid to late 1960s. This format enabled Skotnes to create a series of simplified, emblematic ancestral figures often characteristically formed of excessively long legs, joined by a curve at the top, an extended horseshoe-like form from where the arms extend downwards and a distinctive Y-shaped head emerges.

Often a filigree of connecting lines visually threaded and joined the two dominant verticals implying a torso or body and included stylised details such as breasts. In this work the internal cavity of the torso extends through a narrowed passage to the space between the tall legs.

These emblematic figures have an archaic, symbolic and almost calligraphic presence. The white pigment rubbed into the surface of the figure highlights it in an eerie manner giving it a ghost-like ancestral presence that made Skotnes’s work stand out significantly as both contemporary and 'African' amongst the emerging artists of the 1960s.

Karel Nel

Provenance

A gift from the artist to the current owner.