Judith Mason, who died on December 29 2016 at her home in White River, Mpumalanga, was a revered artist of extremes, her work covering the spectrum from esoteric mysticism to visceral political protest. Applauded for her highly inventive images and known for her installation at the Constitutional Court, The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent, she was also seen as too enamoured of typical white middle-class themes, with some maintaining her work belonged to a period in SA’s art history that had been overtaken in a country in transformation. Having grown up near the Kruger National Park, at a young age, she developed a fascination with animals and insects, especially moths. Also catching her eye was a bust of the Roman historical figure Brutus, and these influences set her off on a lifelong quest to merge western mythology with local mystic forces manifest in animal figurations — of whom snakes and hyenas were favourites — and everyday objects. An example is Oracle, a lithogra...
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