SASOL Wax in Art Competition, SASOL WAM! Festival, Sasolburg, South Africa, September 2002

A group show, curated by Lesley Cohn, of selected artworks submitted nationally for the competition. Sasol Corporation – the competition sponsor – is the largest producer of wax in the world and the competition was unique in that it challenged South African artists to create work in or through wax. The two categories: ‘Wax as the medium’ and ‘Wax as part of the process’ constituted the criteria by which works were judged. Air on the Skin (2002) – a one-off work – won the ‘Wax as the medium’ category. This 70 x 3 040 mm triptych was created by layering black shoe polish over pva-treated paper. The images were then scratched into this surface with a fine blade, gradually working from dark to light.