Kathryn writes:

Through Goodman Gallery Cape Town curator, Emma Bedford, novelist Margie Orford approached me early in 2008 about a novel she was planning which would feature a young artist called Sophie Brown. Orford had seen my exhibition Euphemism at the Iziko South African National Gallery in 2005, and on the basis of the work on that show, believed I could bring her fictional artist Sophie to life. In that first meeting where we talked non-stop for close on three hours, it became clear that Sophie would have to exist. It wouldn’t do to simply try and describe her or her work. In Margie’s story, it is Sophie’s work that reveals the truth about a crime. Her work would have to be researched and made, and then shown as an independent body of creative research and investigation.      For the last 18 months, we have been meeting regularly to develop the complexities of Sophie’s character as well as a plausible timeframe and context in which the novel unfolds. In September 2008, I was invited to participate in a series for SABC2 called Right Through the Arts, in which an artist’s process would be revealed through a ‘reality’ style challenge to make a new motion-picture work in five days. I opted to activate my collaboration with Margie, in which I would try to create a portrait of Sophie, a visual impression of a significant moment in her personal history and my own – Sophie and I meet at the end of the film.      The film offered the opportunity to create a portfolio of still images from the numerous, arresting images shot on set by Caroline McClelland. I have selected 22 images from the set of stills images shot on location, and have edited these into a portfolio that is designed to hang as a sequential series of images, or divided into ‘episodes’ within the series. The portfolio is a commercial exercise intended to generate capital for the project to continue.      The overall project is ambitious and multi-layered, taking the form of a short film, novel, an exhibition and a ‘novelogue’. This last feature is a unique, hybrid object with no precedent that we know of. The closest is Sophie Calle’s post-fact publishing of works referred to in a novel by Paul Auster as being the personal rituals of a character called Maria (see Sophie Calle’s Double Game). Our novelogue is a limited edition, extended version of the novel, which would include all research and reference material regarding the creation of Sophie’s work, as well as documentation of the work/exhibition. It seamlessly combines aspects of the fictional narrative with the fact of the work’s research and production. While I am principally the author of all works of art made under Sophie’s name, her artistic identity is ultimately a complex collaboration between myself and Orford. Back to Sophie Brown