Death of a domestic goddess

Both in the flesh and as a mannequin, Mary Sibande has somehow managed to harmonise chaos with calm.

In person, she speaks rapidly about her art. She gestures a lot, too, moving her arms and hands inwards and outwards as she tries to explain an abstract concept.

And yet, looking at Sibande on the couch, motioning like this and falling over her words, she does not emit excessive energy, for among all that movement and expression is a perfect centredness.

Sophie, her alter ego and the sculptural manifestation of those manic Sibande thoughts, shares this dichotomy. Except, outwardly, it is stillness that is her inherent, inescapable trait.

Whether she is riding a rearing horse, conducting a symphony or waiting at a bus stop, Sophie is serene. Eyes closed, she is suspended in reverie. But beneath it all, beneath the blue domestic dress and clean white apron, beneath the headscarf, beneath the closed eyes, lies a history of disadvantage and discontent, oppression and inescapable circumstance.

Since her first major showing in 2009, Sophie, the flamboyant, powerful, at times dashing and tranquil domestic worker, has become known to most South Africans.

This is not only because it is hard to ignore a life-size sculpture of a domestic worker on a rearing horse; it is also because Sophie, like a lot of great art, communicates a number of uncomfortable truths in an ambiguous way.

But now the time has come to kill her. It is a harsh term, a ragged idea, but it did not have to be this way. Initially, Sibande just wanted to transform Sophie, but then other people's reactionary jumps to conclusion inspired notions of death.

"People said 'Oh, I can't believe you're killing Sophie', and when I thought about it, I decided I actually quite liked that idea," said Sibande. "When I was thinking of letting Sophie go, I read a book that said something along the lines of: 'If death is described as something that will happen soon, then the dying has already begun.' That drew my attention."

However, she is not dead. The new Sophie is now being exhibited at the Standard Bank Gallery, so in a sense she has been reborn, reincarnated, reimagined. One thing is certain: what you are looking at is Sophie, but it is also not Sophie.

"This is the transition between the old figure and the new purple figure," said Sibande. "I chose purple because Sophie was originally seen wearing blue, the colour of Zionism and the labourer, and it was important to change that. These purple works are about me, how I see the world, how I relate to it. I thought of a lot of colours, but I settled on purple because it is the colour of mourning. Right now, I am in transition, letting go of Sophie, waiting for a new figure to emerge."

Sophie's origins come from Sibande's own. Her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were domestic workers. The original works were made to represent that hardship, to express (through Sophie's closed eyes) the vast dreams of a woman, or set of women, stuck in an almost escapable social position. Sibande believes she has got that message across now and, besides, there is another aspect to the original Sophie that she now finds unsettling.

"I've actually lost ownership of her. Some people actually own Sophie now, so she's actually become a domestic worker in that sense, and I don't want that - having people 10 steps ahead of my story. So I decided to let go of that story because it's very dear to me."

The new exhibition, The Purple Shall Govern, naturally has a darker feel compared with previous showings of the old Sophie. There are works with strange, alien or sea-like creatures, which Sophie is either engulfed by or giving birth to. It is crowded, tangled, confused.

There is no great story behind the name "Sophie". When Sibande started making Sophie in her fourth year at university, her supervisor simply told her she needed to give her creation a name. Nevertheless, it creates confusion when meeting either in person.

"Thank you for your time, Sophie," I say at the end of the interview, before apologising for the mistake. "Don't worry," replies Sibande, "it happens all the time."

Perfect ambiguity.