The publication of this book coincides with a retrospective exhibition of Penny Siopis's paintings, installations and films at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg. The phrase ‘Time and Again’, also the title of the retrospective, signals the return of a representative collection of the artist's work to the public domain. It also alludes to recurring concerns in Siopis's work: the relationship between history and memory in the movement of objects; the processes of physical decay and ageing that lead to the ‘completed’ work itself being subject to constant change; the idea of repetition and difference extending into a future still to be constructed; and a compellingly layered engagement with the social and political changes and upheavals in South Africa since the early 1980s.

Although Siopis's work evokes complex thought and reflection, many viewers will remember the visceral impact made by the first moment of seeing. The luscious decay of Melancholia, the excess of colonial imagery surrounding Patience on her monument, the octopus as worm in Obscure White Messenger are among the many memorable confrontations.

The tension between materiality and reference in Siopis's work interferes with the distinction between ‘form’ and ‘content’ that underpins habitual ways of looking. Whether the medium is painting, installation or film, materiality or material process is as much the subject of the work as whatever subject matter is ostensibly depicted. The assertive facture of the surface of the work is seen in the early paintings, where oil paint is built up excessively so that it not only represents but also becomes the physical forms it depicts, wrinkling, cracking and decaying as it dries over time. In the installations made over the years, the residue of time is shown as much through the differentiated surface textures of each object and the physical making of the installation as through the historical biography that could be associated with that object. In the videos of more recent years, dust spots, sprocket marks and interferences that disrupt narrative flow remind the viewer that the film is an artefact.