How hyenas became symbols of female power in South African art

THEY are often disparaged as ugly, sly and cruel scavengers but for South African artist Hannelie Coetzee, hyenas are symbols of female power and the normalisation of queerness.

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The walls of her studio in the university district of downtown Johannesburg are covered in drawings in ink and rooibos tea of the sloped-back carnivores, her heroines of the bush.

With cute ears but a frightening jaw, the animal is also represented in sculptures Coetzee fashions from scavenged materials.

"I am very curious about hyenas from an ecofeminist perspective," said the artist, whose work has been exhibited internationally.

"They're the underdog, misrepresented," she told AFP. "They have been Disney-fied, made into creatures they are not." Coetzee, 53, identifies in the animal a "celebration of the matriarch" in packs that are led by an authoritarian female and where other females dominate, for example in the sharing of food.