Emily Rice (Cape Town)

2025 Sasol New Signatures Finalist

White noise of Endurance 

Distressed fabric and Plaster of Paris on frame 

80 cm x 60 cm 

ARTIST’S STATEMENT 

White noise of Endurance explores the delicate, yet powerful structure of vulnerability. Through distressed plaster on canvas, the artwork examines the tension between strength and fragility, where cracks and imperfections mark resilience rather than weakness. The stark whiteness evokes both purity and exposure, confronting the viewer with the rawness of endurance. The title reflects this subtle, persistent presence, suggesting that endurance, like white noise, is quiet but constant, shaping us beneath the surface. 

Created using distressed Plaster of Paris and repurposed fabric, the materials themselves embody fragility and resilience. The cracked plaster captures the passage of time, its flaws echoing the enduring nature of human experience. Salvaged fabric, woven with memory and transformation, carries traces of its past.  

Embedded within the plaster, these threads create a tactile contrast-soft yet bound-reinforcing the tension between collapse and strength.  This work quietly rebels against the notion that fragility is a flaw. It invites viewers to reconsider vulnerability not as weakness, but as an integral and powerful part of the human condition, where the act of holding 

together, even in silence, is a form of resistance. Within the fractures lies a kind of unspoken endurance-subtle, continuous, and profound. 

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