the slip

Libita Sibungu
A longform image that is scrollable onscreen. The image is formed of several watercolour drawings compiled together to run continuously. The watercolour formation sprawls across the frame in multiple directions with pools of negative space. The colours shift as you scroll down and words are typed in a deep rich purple-brown serif font, scattered sporadically throughout the image and finishing after the watercolours have ended (at “cosmic forces”). Occasionally when the type intersects with certain watercolour hues the type shows up with a blue tinge. The colours of the watercolour start as a loop of stained black, merging into pale oranges, greens and more touches of black. The next section has several arcs of burnt orange brushstrokes from left to right seeping upwards into each other and underlaid by two deep indigo blue brushstrokes that start broad and amorphous at the lower end and trail off into wiggles around the burnt orange. The third section continues a thin sinuous line of burnt orange largely obscured by trails of a rich pink to the left with a soft loop of murky grey-green and to the right a bigger swathe of grey-green down towards a circle of softer pink next to a bigger expanse of pink coming from the left lower corner. The final section is a mix of pale peachy pink in the top left corner and down the right side, a small smudge of golden yellow towards the middle top and several looped and squiggled lines of khaki green and the same pale peachy pink and rich pink from the previous section. The text throughout reads as follows. Each comma denotes a shift to another line in the image and a forward slash denotes phrases on the same line spaced apart rather than grammar used by the artist. Brackets artists own. “between shores, tidalectic, out of body, into mind, stretch, away, run inside, hide, cut, becoming, skin peels forwards, head leans back, jaw creaks/leak, holding place, space, body still, abandoned, resonating, choke, throat, flows over, gargle, flesh, piling, heaping, folds, skin/oil/earth, mask dripping, slips, (vibrating bone), cells scream, silently, blood rushes through, tunnelling down, as they go up, breaking out, free, (free from the whiff of the gone bad thing, the rotting precedes the jolt), sweaty folds, quivering humms, (slump), deep within the cracks, rank, expand, distance falling, she falls, up, retreat, foul memory, split, shadow body, long drift, above, overwhelm, feel tongue, toes press, cold, sour, soft, come back, to substrate, glide with the eclipse, hold the darkness, brace for light, pull deep, in the/air, stars, n, cosmic forces, (exhale distance), spirit settles/back, rib over hip, over heap”

Libita Sibungu

WebsiteInstagram

Libita Sibungu is a multidisciplinary artist, drawing on her British-Cornish-Namibian heritage to make discursive works which explore entangled personal histories, and colonial legacies inscribed in the body and land. Selected exhibitions have been with Kunsthall Trondheim (Norway, 2023), Temple Bar Gallery (Ireland, 2021), and Gasworks (UK, 2019). Libita is also the recipient of both the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and Arts Foundation Future awards, (2022).

Design & build by Take Courage
© 2025 Deep Time