"SIRIUS – THE DOG STAR

I once did a Vision Quest (which is a native American ritual helping to transcend and overcome one’s fears) in the Groot Winterhoek Mountains in the Cape. I did it to try and conquer my fear of being alone at home at night in Joburg when my husband was away. I thought if I could spend five days and nights alone in the wild, with water as my only sustenance, I would have achieved a self-confidence and understanding, helping me in conquering some of these fears.

At night there was nothing to do but lie in my sleeping bag and look at the stars.  The first star to stand out was Orion’s Belt and to the left of Orion, Sirius.  It is a blue white star and is the closest star to earth and is also called the Dog Star. The Dogons of Mali have a cosmology that is directly related to Sirius and they knew all about the elliptical movement through the skies long before the telescope was invented. As I dozed on and off I would follow the movement of Sirius through the night sky. Being able to focus on it made me feel sort of safe.

So, I created the Dog Star brooch because of that experience and the blue stones on the brooch referenced the blue white star of Sirius."

Diana Hyslop

Although Johannesburg is currently her home, Diana Hyslop (b. 1949) didn't always live there. And she wasn't always a painter. In her mid-twenties, she worked for Marvel Comics in London. On her return to South Africa, she joined the film industry and worked on feature and documentary films. During the 80s, she studied painting, and in the 90s, spent a year at the Santa Monica Fine Art Studios in California, where she spent time between filming and painting. It was only in 1998 that Hyslop committed to full-time painting and has since exhibited widely - both in South Africa and abroad. Her work is largely informed by comics and film, and her work is part real, part magic. She works mainly with oil, acrylic, and digital mediums and draws on the human experience, traversing emotion, spirit, vulnerability, and defences.