Artist Spotlight: Lyndi Sales

A while back I stumbled upon the work of South African artist Lyndi Sales, while doing research on paper-cut work for my Exploding Lace installation. As you can see why, I was immediately drawn to the intricacy and meticulousness of her thought provoking, multi-dimensional cut-works in paper, sharing a similar sensibility to the way that I approach working and my own materials and processes. Here is a bit of info about Lyndi, I highly recommend checking out her website for more images of her incredible and extensive body of work.

Lyndi Sales is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. For the past couple of years, she has been working on a series of installations and artworks that seek to investigate the circumstances surrounding the controversial Helderberg plane crash. These constructions, made of intricately cut, pinned paper and rubber often shed light on the fragile nature of our existence, temporality and how chance plays a role in our lives.

"All the works I created (below) are a part of the airline crash series. The Helderberg crash happened 20 years ago during the Apartheid era and remains unresolved and is still a controversial issue today in South Africa. At the time of the crash there were political sanctions against our country, there was an arms embargo that prohibited SA from importing any arms or substances used in warfare into the country. It is believed that SA authorities were importing highly flammable substances on passenger Boeings as a result of the embargo. Upon leaving Taipei, turbulence caused by a storm enabled the Ammonia petro chlorate to self ignite causing a fatal fire on board, leading the plane to crash a few hours later. Subsequently there have been a number of cover-ups to hide information such as the black box recordings, paperwork etc."

The work In Transit illustrates many themes surrounding the Helderberg crash including the area of the ocean floor where the wreckage landed. "An image of seaweed was cut into the map and then the negative pieces were re-pinned and arranged to form a contour of the ocean floor. The seaweed is symbolic of bronchial branches (lungs and breath) and suggests that the ocean (and crash site) is alive with the breath of those who died as well as alive with the mystery of what went down."

Flight Path Vortex