PRIZEWINNER
SOUTH AFRICA
Mary-Rose Hendrikse
Fragments of a Rainbow Nation 1998
oil on matchboxes 25 x 38 cm
Exhibition Catalogue No. 198

Mary-Rose Hendrikse was born in 1963 in Cape Town and studied art at the Foundation School of Art and the University of South Africa in Cape Town. She works as a painter and poet. Her work comprises 47 matchboxes each painted with a small portrait, and each containing matches, perhaps suggestive of a tinderbox. The artist comments: ‘Faces have been my lifelong preoccupation so I naturally chose this avenue to explore the theme of my country in the year 2000. The multi-portrait became a way of tackling the problematic concept of nationhood. I see the piece as a map that holds everything together without compromising the individuality of each component. Working on a small scale was surprisingly liberating. It enabled me to include many faces and it entices the viewer into an intimate relationship with the images’.