Misheck MasamvuSunset, 2021
Generative in approach and restorative in ambition, Misheck Masamvu has described painting as a "kind of post-mortem" – a self-reflective process that allows him to navigate the complexities of the present. His work exposes the layered emotional and psychological scars of the post-colonial condition, using a distinctive visual language that merges expressive abstraction with figuration. Drawing on the legacy of German Expressionism while responding to the lived realities of Zimbabwe, Masamvu creates paintings that lure viewers in with a sense of aesthetic familiarity, only to unsettle them with deeper undercurrents of discomfort and vulnerability.
Masamvu’s use of figures within abstracted, shifting environments speaks to a desire for an alternative space – one that resists imposed ideologies and reclaims a sense of human dignity. As he explains, "I use figuration and abstraction in my work because I am looking for an alternative space... against the forced ideology of government and the breakdown of the pursuit of humanity." The figures often appear to merge with the land itself, their entanglement symbolising a return to nature and a release from systems of control. In reframing the land not as a commodity, but as a spiritual and relational space, Masamvu invites a reconnection with ancestry, environment, and inner life.
