Cassi NamodaLittle is Enough For Those with Love Mimi Nakupenda, 2019
In ‘Little is Enough For Those with Love Mimi Nakupenda’, Cassi Namoda presents a scene that hovers between intimacy and detachment, depicting a group of people dancing inside what appears to be a bar or nightclub. An empty table in the foreground, scattered with liquor bottles and glasses, hints at the remnants of conversation, connection, or quiet withdrawal. Through softly layered brushstrokes and a subdued palette, Namoda evokes an atmosphere that is at once tender and melancholic. As with much of her work, the moment she captures feels suspended in time, inviting viewers to consider the emotional textures of communal life.
Namoda’s practice often explores the subtleties of human interaction within post-colonial and post-communist contexts, drawing from her own transnational experiences and an evolving archive of memory, observation, and imagination. In this work, she meditates on the complexities of joy, longing, and emotional distance within spaces meant for celebration. The painting offers no fixed narrative but gestures instead toward a deeper emotional register, where acts of dancing or drinking become vehicles for reflection, self-expression, and performance. It reflects her ongoing interest in the tension between individual interiority and collective experience, and in how moments of apparent freedom can reveal quiet undercurrents of vulnerability, nostalgia, and unresolved desire.
