For over five decades, Robert Slingsby has pursued a singular and uncompromising artistic journey, grounded in fieldwork, research and an unwavering commitment to documenting the complexities of Africa’s traditional cultures in transition. A five-year education at the Vrije Akademie in Den Haag, Holland, a crucible of classical training infused, countercultural ideas, innovative expression and revolutionary politics, formed the foundation for Slingsby’s development as a multidisciplinary artist. His practice encompasses painting, drawing, etching and sculpture – including bronze editions, forged steel, cast concrete and laser cut stainless steel, all marked by precision and a profound engagement with Africa’s traditional mark-makers, both ancient and contemporary.
Slingsby’s work is the outcome of immersive field research in some of the most remote and challenging regions of the continent. His obsessive engagement with Africa’s art, particularly the petroglyphs of the Richtersveld and his in-depth documentation of threatened indigenous knowledge systems has positioned him as a singular figure in the preservation and artistic interpretation of Africa’s endangered visual heritage. From the stone-carved histories along the Orange River to the ruptures unfolding in the Great Rift Valley, his art confronts the realities of marginalisation, land dispossession, environmental degradation and the relentless erosion of ancestral culture under modern expansionism.
In his current body of work, a return to oil on canvas, Slingsby draws deeply from this wellspring of lived experience. These complex, layered compositions are both a reckoning and a tribute, anchored in his enduring fascination with ‘the line’, a visual and conceptual thread that runs through ancient rock markings and contemporary mark-making alike. His paintings are precise and visceral: they chart not only the landscape, but the emotional and spiritual terrains of communities standing at the edge of erasure. Through them, he invites viewers into a world shaped by encounter, endurance, embedded beauty and observation.