Cassi NamodaRua Araujo and Three Maria’s nightly bread, 2020
In ‘Rua Araujo and Three Maria’s nightly bread’, Cassi Namoda presents a layered composition set within what appears to be a bustling nightlife scene, possibly in Maputo. Figures dance, drink, and observe one another across a checkered floor and mottled green backdrop, rendered in Namoda’s signature flat perspective and vivid colour palette. At the centre are three iterations of Maria, a recurring figure in Namoda’s work who functions as both a cultural reference and a spiritual archetype. One sits at a table, withdrawn and contemplative; another, adorned with angelic wings, meets the viewer’s gaze with quiet resolve; the third watches from a distance, caught in the threshold between visibility and absence. Maria, named in reference to Catholicism’s colonial legacy in Mozambique, becomes a metaphor for contemporary life in the post-colonial era. She is both real and otherworldly, carrying the emotional complexity of womanhood shaped by history, faith, and social expectation.
Namoda’s Maria figures often express a range of affective states, from contentment to sorrow, signalling the aftershocks of colonialism through a distinctly female perspective. In this work, the bar or club setting becomes a site of layered performance, where acts of celebration are tinged with longing, vulnerability, and emotional distance. While the scene may appear convivial, the emotional registers of the characters suggest a deeper tension between interior experience and social ritual. Through symbolic elements such as angel wings, a teardrop, and devilish horns, Namoda introduces metaphysical references that echo the dualities of faith and doubt, connection and isolation. ‘Rua Araujo and Three Maria’s nightly bread’ is less concerned with narrative than with atmosphere, using gesture, colour, and composition to meditate on how women inhabit spaces of memory, loss, and resilience in the wake of colonial and religious histories.
