Just after 1pm on a Friday, I follow Sue Williamson through the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town into a room that houses one section of her upcoming exhibition, titled Inside the Studio.
It is exactly what one might imagine one wall is covered in a floor-to-ceiling wallpaper reproduction of the bookshelf in Williamsons studio, while the other half serves as a kind of archive. She asks if she can label snow globes while we talk and I take the rare opportunity to observe her at work.
The 84-year-old artist and activist is preparing for her first retrospective, titled Theres something I must tell you after one of the works on the show, which is opening the next day. The gallery is still a flurry of activity.
As she works, carefully labelling globes collected from cities she has exhibited in, she talks me through what led to the retrospective.
Its been on my mind for a long time because Ive got a lot of work, she says. And a lot of artists have all had retrospectives but it hadnt happened for me.