Diane Victor: The Ground Beneath Our Feet

The School of the Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria presents a solo exhibition by Diane Victor curated by Basak Senova and Johan Thom. The exhibition titled The Ground Beneath Our Feet by Victor unfolds through different bodies of work that engage with memory, loss, and what lies beneath the soil. Victor draws intensely from her personal background in South Africa, where, owing to her father’s profession, she was raised in a mining environment. Mining, with its multifaceted ties to labour, landscape, and exploitation, has become a formative source for her artistic practice. In this context, Victor explores interconnected themes of violence and layered, often buried histories from a feminist perspective. To evoke the physical and symbolic weight of extraction, Victor works with natural materials such as smoke, dust and cobalt. By grounding her works for this exhibition in these materials, she links her personal history to broader narratives of contested resources, human struggle, material transformation and endangered ecologies.

The exhibition brings together newly produced large-scale installations, drawings, and existing works by Victor as part of a fluid, singular spatial composition. This serves as an invitation to the audience to immerse themselves in the layered narratives of the visible and the hidden that comprise the exhibition as a whole. Dust, smoke projections, and floor drawings form core elements, addressing things we might try to bury or forget. Things that remain hidden become resources, sites of conflict and contestation. Who owns our past, our trauma and our future? The exhibition space itself becomes part of this narrative, with carefully orchestrated light and shadows shaping the overall atmosphere and spatial experience. The installation integrates floor drawings, works on glass with smoke, and sculptural elements in dialogue with the venue's architecture, avoiding physical separations and allowing the works to unfold organically. Light is employed not only to reveal forms but also to guide the viewer’s experience, highlighting the interplay between wall and floor works as well as a major hanging installation, creating an immersive surrounding. 

Diane Victor (b1964, eMalahleni, South Africa) is a prominent figure in South African and international art. Victor is internationally renowned for her masterful printmaking and large-scale figurative drawings. Her work often confronts difficult and taboo subjects, addressing issues such as corruption, violence, and social inequality. In recognition of the impact of her work and achievements Victor was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pretoria in 2025. Victor earned her BA in Fine Arts, majoring in Printmaking, from the University of the Witwatersrand with distinction in 1986. She has received numerous awards, including the Sasol New Signatures Award (1987) and the Volkskas Atelier Award (1988). Her work has been exhibited widely in South Africa and internationally, at venues including MoMA New York, Yale University Art Gallery, the National Museum of Contemporary Art Oslo, and the Adelaide Central Gallery. Victor’s work is held in major collections, including Sasol, Pretoria Art Museum, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Durban Art Museum. Since 1990, she has held teaching positions in Fine Art at prominent South African institutions including the University of Pretoria (UP). 

The curators of the exhibition are Assoc. Prof. Dr. Johan Thom, artist and Coordinator of Fine Art at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basak Senova, curator and designer, and Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with her PEEK project Atlas (of Creative Mechanisms): [Curating-Conducting], funded by the FWF–Austrian Science Fund (2022–27). The exhibition is supported by the University of Pretoria including the Faculty of Humanities, the School of the Arts, UP Museums & the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria. 

Running along the exhibition at the Bridge Gallery at The Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, is a site-specific installation by Victor as part of the SOIL & WATER Project—a large-scale artistic research project and exhibition that unfolds within the ancient ancestral land of the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa. SOIL & WATER has been developed by Thom and Senova in collaboration with the NIROX Foundation and Sculpture Park and the University of Pretoria. The project brings together over 50 international artists including Abri de Swardt (South Africa), Alet Pretorius (South Africa), Anastasiia Shcherban (Ukraine), Atang Tshikare (South Africa), Atul Bhalla (India), Barbara Putz-Plecko (Austria), Bronwyn Lace featuring The Centre for the Less Good Idea (South Africa), Caroline Le Méhauté (France), Christophe Fellay (Switzerland), Coral Bijoux (South Africa), Diego Masera (Argentina), Diane Victor (South Africa), Douglas Gimberg & Diana Vives (South Africa), Ebru Kurbak (Turkey/Austria), Egle Oddo (Italy/Finland), Eugénie Touzé (France), Francesco Bellina (Italy), Hera Büyüktasçiyan (Turkey), Herrana Addisu (Estonia), Inma Herrera (Spain/Finland), Isa Rosenberger (Austria), Jacob van Schalkwyk (South Africa), Jessica Ostrowicz (UK), Jesper Just (Denmark), Johan Thom (South Africa), Jonatan Habib Engqvist [Author] (Sweden), Ledelle Moe (South Africa), Lorin Sookol (South Africa), Lundahl & Seitl (SE), MADEYOULOOK (South Africa), Maria Lantz (Sweden), Marcus Neustetter (Austria/South Africa), Mithu Sen (India), Olha Fedorova (Ukraine), Oya Silbery (Cyprus), Raúl Mirlo (Mexico), Paula Anta (Spain), Ramesh Daha (Austria), Robin Rhode (South Africa/Germany), Rojda Tugrul (Turkey), Sebastian Stumpf (Germany), Seretse Moletsane (South Africa), Setlamorago Mashilo (South Africa), The ZoNE (Austria/Switzerland/Turkey/South Africa), and Vibha Galhotra (India).

SOIL & WATER is supported by the NIROX Foundation, The University of Pretoria, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Rooms Kyrenia, ARUCAD–Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design, Austrian Cultural Forum Pretoria, BIENALSUR - Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo del Sur, BMKÖS–Austrian Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, Danish Arts Foundation, Embassy of Austria in South Africa, Embassy of Spain in South Africa, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, IASPIS–International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts, Italian Cultural Institute of Pretoria, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Kunsthaus Dahlem Berlin, L’Accolade e Foundation Paris, The Claire and Edoardo Villa Will Trust South Africa, Ukrainian Institute Ukraine, and Techizart Istanbul.