Monique Rudman van Rooyen
The seven deadly sins an artist catalogue
This series of drawings was exhibited by outoftheCUBE at TAF (The Turbine Art Fair)
Johannesburg, 2017
The artwork of Monique Rudman van Rooyen was little known, despite her being an extremely talented artist and thinker, and a well-respected colleague and educator.
She was enigmatic about her work, sharing her creative process with few people. As we were dear friends, I was fortunate enough to watch her making artworks and hear her mulling over how their evolving meanings reflected her worldview.
She explored the world with all her senses and to see her draw quietly and slowly, making the graphite almost caress the paper, was a joy. When drawing she was completely unhurried, allowing the correct mark to appear in the correct way, erasing even the tiniest out-of-place stroke.
In the Christian tradition, the seven sins - pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth – were known to be “terrible temptations from which all sinful behaviour springs” (Evagrius Ponticus). They have been illustrated by artists over the centuries, usually taking the form of narrative images.
However, Monique chose to depict them in a more understated way, presenting just images of the human hand interacting with specific objects. Although people have trained themselves to mask their facial expressions to give nothing of their emotional state away, their hands often reveal instincts, intentions and attitudes.
True to form, Monique offered little explanation for the imagery of her seven deadly sins series. When I asked why she had left each one untitled, she told me that, for her, in any person the sins were all interlinked, one leading into another in a chaotic rather than linear way. As such, she chose not to distinguish one from the other by titling them.
Because of her sensitive approach to her markmaking, there is subtle yet exquisite tension within each work – hands stretch out or are they releasing, the delicate impression of a sharp knife point on a finger, the slight indent indicating the tightness of a string of fragile beads tying wrists together …
See for yourself.
The drawings
The details
