Soffietti married her partner whom she met at Wits University during her law degree. After eight years in Barbados and four children by then belonging to the Soffietti clan, the artist and her husband (an Italian architect) decided to settle for good in a nascent democracy. 

The choice was not reached easily, though in the artist’s own words: ‘SA is a paradise on earth, where, as yet, the natural resources have not been exhausted.’
 
There is this element of distortion evident in her subjects. When asked whether this dramatises any particular personal interpretation of the world, and life, this artist responds:

‘Nothing pleases me more than the grotesque of human nature! I don’t do pretty and I become colour-blind when it comes to pastels and sober colours’. Her combinations of colour and composition are imaginative and at times, unexpected. In her art she wouldn’t dream of plagiarising nature because, and I quote the artist, ‘a) I’m not that good and b) I’d rather buy a postcard.’ Nature, for Soffietti, is mysterious and perfect and ought to remain untouched in its finished state. She allows herself to marvel, not to comprehend it when it comes to the eye. The artist admits: ‘I paint to translate the incongruities of my mind, and stop when it fails to entertain me’.

March/April 2011 Issue

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