Misheck MasamvuThe Power of Running Away, 2022
Exhibited at the 5th Aichi Triennale in Japan, ‘The Power of Running Away’ was produced during a period of global lockdown, when movement was restricted and internal tensions surfaced with heightened intensity. In this work, Misheck Masamvu channels the emotional complexity of that time into a charged and layered surface. Abstraction and figuration intermingle as gestural brushstrokes, tangled lines, and fields of vivid colour create a restless, convulsive composition. The figures appear caught in a process of transformation, partially absorbed into its surroundings, suggesting a landscape in flux – shifting, resisting, and becoming.
Rather than presenting a fixed image, the painting invites an unfolding experience. Masamvu’s expressive mark-making obscures immediate legibility, drawing the viewer into a field of visual camouflage where forms are suggested rather than defined. This refusal of clarity is not concealment, but an opening – a space in which the viewer is prompted to recognise their own internal contradictions, to project, interpret, and question.
