Ziggy to Blackstar: He Never Sat for This Portrait

Medium
Layered-averaging composite of 310 source photographs of David Bowie, aligned on eye-midpoint and mouth, averaged at equal 1/310 weight in perceptually uniform colour space; archival pigment print on fine-art paper
Dimensions
570 × 712 mm (6732 × 8415 px at 300 DPI)
Year
2026
Price
R33,333.33
Acquire
Currently on show at The Viewing Room Art Gallery, Pretoria (23 May – 15 June 2026). Enquiries via the gallery.

A frontal face held in grey mist, the hair dissolving at its edges into a halo of other haircuts, the eyes not quite matching. Ziggy, the Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, Major Tom, Halloween Jack, Blackstar: none of them is centred, and all of them are here. Three hundred and ten photographs averaged at equal 1/310 weight, no source dominating the others.

Companion essay: From Ziggy to Blackstar. Showing at The Viewing Room Art Gallery, St. Lorient, Pretoria (23 May – 15 June 2026), curated by Gordon Froud.