Diane Victor
Diane Victor is an artist of uncompromising directness. Her pastel, charcoal and linocut works typically confront viewers with a highly charged, often fraught psychological landscape. “I cannot just leave issues that anger or upset me alone,” she once observed in an interview. “They are still part of my range of choices and an element of my social conscience � that want almost to rattle people or make them take one step beyond their comfort zone.”
- Sean O’Toole, 2003
Victor has established herself as a major figure in the South African and International art communities and is renowned for her expert printmaking and draughtsmanship. Her prints and drawings are known not only for their technical skill and compulsive linear detail, but also for their sharp political and social commentary and satire. Her works, although often drawn from global historical and mythological references, speak of the social and political inequalities and complexities of South Africa. Violence, racial anxiety and sexual repression are common ideas represented in the works. Combining both thematic and technical skill, Victor impresses powerful ideas on the viewer, never shying away from controversial or taboo subject matter.
