Mark Hipper

Exhibited

João Ferreira Fine Art, Cape Town, Bad, 9 to 24 April 1999.

Centre for African Studies Gallery, Cape Town, Finding UCT, 19 September to 10 October 2007.

Notes

Mark Hipper was an artist who was not a stranger to controversy. He famously was met with criticism for his National Arts Festival exhibition, Viscera, which was billed as an exploration of child sexuality and featured line studies of nude children. It sparked a national debate about artistic freedom and pornography after receiving backlash from the then Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Lindiwe Sisulu and child welfare groups.¹

The present lot, Good Girl, was part of Hipper’s 1999 exhibition Bad at João Ferreira Fine Art. These works reflect on and respond to the reactions elicited by Viscera, incorporating a conscious element of self-censorship. In particular, Hipper obscures the identities of his subjects, often using stripes across the eyes, blotted features, or by omitting the face entirely, as is evident in the present work. The resulting compositions are at once formal, impersonal, and fragile, creating a tension between observation and distance.²

In Good Girl, only the legs of seemingly school-aged girls are depicted. The composition is largely empty, with the figures occupying approximately half of the canvas’s white space. Across the lower portion, the words “Good Girl” are inscribed in a style reminiscent of classroom chalkboard writing. The phrase, contextually loaded, can shift dramatically in meaning depending on tone and relational dynamics. Here, Hipper explores the complex interplay of power, authority, and vulnerability through a restrained and tautly rendered image. The focus on the anonymous lower bodies, with knees neatly positioned and hands clasped, combined with the expressive qualities of charcoal, positions the viewer in a deliberately uncomfortable, contemplative stance. While nothing is explicit, the work invites reflection on the psychology of observation, consent, and the eroticization of authority within cultural frameworks. ³

^1. Alex Dodd (1998) Mail & Guardian, Censorship row over child nudes, online, accessed 22 January 2026.

^2. Tracy Murinik (1999) ArtThrob, Mark Hipper at João Ferreira Fine Art, online, accessed 5 January 2026.

^3. Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, unpaginated.

Literature

Tracy Murinik (1999) ArtThrob, Mark Hipper at João Ferreira Fine Art, online, illustrated in colour, accessed 5 January 2026.

Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, illustrated in black and white, unpaginated, cat. no. 14.

Provenance

João Ferreira Fine Art, Cape Town

Property of a Gentleman.