Strauss & co - 7 November 2016, Johannesburg

232 Deborah Poynton’s diptych Safety and Security (2006), which was also the title of her 2006 solo exhibition at Stevenson in Cape Town, depicts some 60 individuals gathered in the public square of the Cape Town Civic Centre. The artist’s characteristic rich and realistic depictions of the people who populate her works, are here shown in great detail, with each individual personality highly developed. Poynton’s expansive canvasses are inhabited by a group of individuals. She assiduously collects fragments of images from which she then selects the people, objects and settings to include in her imposing paintings, which bear veracious witness to the world around us. The public square is historically a space where people meet, socialize, interact and communicate. Yet here she depicts the gathering of modern day humans as figures set against a stark twilight-lit concrete architectural space. All the characters are detached and isolated from 272 Deborah POYNTON south african 1970 – Safety and Security, diptych each signed, dated 2005 and inscribed with the title on the reverse oil on canvas each: 205,5 by 300 cm (2) R400 000 – 600 000 literature Sophie Perryer (ed.) (2006) Deborah Poynton: Safety and Security , Cape Town: Stevenson Gallery. Illustrated in colour on pages 24–28.