Empathic Engagements with Death and Loss in the Work of Diane Victor

Diane Victor (b.1964) is a South African graphic artist known both at home and globally for her mastery of drawing and printing techniques as well as thought provoking, socially relevant iconography. Her imagery is renowned for its ability to disturb viewers and grows from her own deeply felt anger at the injustices of daily life. In many finely detailed, obsessive works, her incisive commentary on social and political shortcomings reveals every nastiness and horror humanity is capable of, and she has said she uses her art as a form of catharsis when dealing with upsetting subject matter. Victor’s engagement with depravity has another side, however, in which those who succumb to crime and disease, or the sufferings inherent in the human condition, are sensitively portrayed through innovative experiments with smoke and ash. These materials express the fragility of life and alert us to our mortality (ashes to ashes…), thereby evoking an empathic response in the viewer.