Mandie Immelman, Salty Vanitas, Silkscreen, 62 x 45cm, Ed 4 of 4, 2025, Framed
Salty Vanitas reflects on fragility, inheritance, and the quiet violence embedded in
beauty. Lilies bloom within a glass bowl—some submerged, others reaching above
the surface – caught between preservation and decay. The bowl rests on an
Afrikaner doily layered over Sesweswe fabric, bringing together the textures of
colonial domesticity and African endurance.
Snails move slowly across the lilies, unaware of the salt that lingers in their world—a
reminder that what sustains one life may destroy another. Salt, here, becomes both a
purifier and a poison, echoing histories of extraction, trade, and transformation.
Through this still life, Salty Vanitas contemplates coexistence and consequence: how
beauty survives under threat, how tenderness and harm intertwine, and how every
act of preservation carries the shadow of loss.