Fragment of Memory — Cape Malay Portrait

A large-scale oil painting from Lionel Smit's celebrated body of work exploring identity and the Cape Malay community. Multiple translucent layers of paint create a shimmering, almost holographic effect — the subject's face appears both emerging from and dissolving into the canvas. Smit's technique of layering thin glazes over thick impasto passages gives the work an extraordinary depth that photographs cannot fully capture.