Lady Skollie

LADY SKOLLIE

(b. 1987 Cape Town, South Africa)

Lady Skollie (born Laura Windvogel) is an artist and activist from Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated with a degree in History of Art and Dutch Literature from the University of Cape Town in 2009 and trained in printmaking. Since graduating, her solo exhibitions include ‘Vroeg Ryp, Vroeg Vrot’, 2015, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa; ‘Ask for what you want’, WorldArt Gallery, 2015, Cape Town, South Africa; ‘The only reason’, 2014, Stevenson Gallery RAMP Project, Cape Town, South Africa and ‘Skattie Celebrates Laura Windvogel’, Association for Visual Arts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, 2017. Her highly-anticipated first solo show at Everard Read Johannesburg opened at the end of May in 2019.

Filled with bold colour, god-like figures and suggestive fruits, Lady Skollie’s work revolves around themes of gender, sex and the politics of lust, as well as her explorations of identity.

The artist’s work has been exhibited widely across South Africa, and at a number of international solo and group exhibitions and art fairs. In 2017, along with Tschabalala Self and Abe Odedina, the artist contributed artwork for the stage design of a gala performance of The Children’s Monologues, a benefit held by the charitable organisation Dramatic Need, directed by Danny Boyle and held at Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, USA. She has been featured on BBC Africa and CNN International on African Voices, as well as on the BBC World Service’s online and radio series In the Studio. She was included in the 2018 edition of OkayAfrica’s 100 Women, an annual list which honours women across 10 different fields for their achievements and influence. She was recognised with the 2019 Mbokodo Award for Art and Design, which celebrates the pioneering spirit of South African women advancing the arts. She also received the 2019 GQ Woman of the Year Award.

In 2019, Windvogel was commissioned to design the new R5 coin to commemorate 25 years of constitutional democracy in South Africa. The coin is currently in circulation throughout South Africa. In 2020, Lady Skollie was announced as the 10th recipient of the prestigious FNB Art Prize, joining the likes of Bronwyn Katz, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Nolan Oswald Dennis and Turiya Magadlela. She presented a solo exhibition later that year, Bound, at Everard Read Cape Town, followed by a solo exhibition at Everard Read Johannesburg in 2021.