Senzo Spot begins with giraffe markings and ends as something close to a plain. Drawn by Senzo Duma, one of the younger Ardmore artists, it reduces an animal print to a small evenly distributed daub: enough to give the wall a rhythm, not enough to read as a motif from across a room.
The interest is in the mark itself. Each spot is softly textured rather than solid, laid down with the irregularity of a brush, and in several colourways it is worked in metallic against a matte ground so that the pattern appears and disappears with the light. It is a semi-plain that changes through the day, which is more than most textured papers manage. Small repeats of this kind also make short work of awkward walls, since there is almost nothing to match and very little waste.
Colourings run from quiet tonal neutrals to sharper combinations and one true animal colouring, so the same design can either recede or assert itself. As a background it is unusually accommodating, taking pictures, mirrors, joinery and heavily patterned textiles in front of it. Use it where a plain would look flat and a pattern would be too much: a hall, a landing, a dressing room, the inside of a fitted cupboard.
