Frozen in Time

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by the current owner.

Exhibited

Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch, Casted: Scultura Italiana with Patrick Bongoy and Jake Michael Singer, 27 November 2023 to 28 January 2024.

Notes

In Frozen in Time, Patrick Bongoy transforms recycled rubber and inner tubes into abstract yet metaphorical tapestries that reflect the fraught history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through intricate cutting, weaving, and layering, Bongoy evokes the labour-intensive processes of latex harvesting and rubber extraction that shaped the country’s colonial past, while simultaneously alluding to the environmental destruction and human suffering tied to those industries.¹ The material itself becomes both medium and witness, carrying the weight of exploitation, resilience, and memory.

In the present lot, Bongoy pushes the work beyond the limits of its support structure, allowing sections of rubber to spill from the backing and drag across the floor. This gesture introduces a sense of collapse and release, as though history itself cannot be contained within the frame. At the centre of the composition, two wing-like forms rendered in vivid orange rubber emerge as both a visual focal point and a symbolic force of movement. Suspended between burden and flight, decay and transformation, the work captures the tension between historical trauma and the possibility of renewal.

^1. No author (2024) Rupert Museum, CASTED: Scultura Italiana with Patrick Bongoy & Jake Michael Singer, online, accessed 28 May 2026.