Misheck MasamvuEntangled, 2023
In ‘Entangled’, flower-like forms erupt across the canvas in bursts of blue, yellow, white and mossy green, creating a thicket of motion and emotion. The surface is alive with expressive marks that bloom, drip, and collapse, evoking a space where natural abundance meets slow decay. These organic, plant-like motifs are not decorative; they operate as metaphors for instability and transformation. Through them, Misheck Masamvu navigates a collective terrain shaped by contradiction.
Masamvu’s painterly style, marked by gestural brushwork and saturated colour, functions as a way of working through both personal and political complexities. In ‘Entangled’, the natural world is rendered as a site of tension rather than harmony, full of overlapping forms that suggest systems in flux. The painting becomes a meditation on entanglement itself – as a state of being, a social condition, and a visual language. Rather than offering resolution, the work invites viewers to linger in uncertainty, to find resonance in disarray, and to consider how beauty and instability often coexist.
