Goodman Gallery East Hampton is pleased to present Carnivorous Words, a vibrant solo exhibition of colour-rich paintings by pioneering Zimbabwean artist Misheck Masamvu. Carnivorous Words marks Masamvu’s first solo exhibition in the United States, following his participation in Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection at El Espacio 23 and Allied with Power at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
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While abstraction forms an integral part of Masamvu’s practice he does not let go of figuration completely. Rather, his figures appear within the abstracted space he creates, attesting to his continued belief in the narrative potential of painting. For the artist, his paintings are understood as marks of existence, pointing not only to the realities of his lived experience but also to mental and psychological space, where each layer of paint, or brushstroke on the canvas proposes a search to resolve conflicted experiences or decisions.
"I use both figuration and abstraction in my work because I am looking for a new alternative space – one that is against the forced ideology of government and the breakdown of the pursuit of humanity. For this, the symbolism of the landscape and the figure in constant states of entangled metamorphosis are important. I am aware of the communion of the body, the soil and spirit and am interested in how transfiguration and memoirs of body and soul can evoke a real sense of vulnerability", says Masamvu.
With a technique that is immediate and direct, Masamvu's works consist of layered painted surfaces, abstracted forms and brushstrokes which are almost visceral and exist as remnants of the physical action of painting. In establishing a distinct abstract visual language, one gets the sense that multiple temporalities have been included in one picture plane and that beneath the surface of one painted image, an infinity of others exist. The outcome of which is a porous pictorial space, one that moves between representational clarity and rich, abstract abundance.
Installation Images
Artist Bio
Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, Misheck Masamvu’s (b. 1980, Mutare, Zimbabwe) works allow him to address the past while searching for a way of being in the world. As one of the most significant artists from Zimbabwe, Masamvu’s work offers a renewed understanding of visual culture in Africa and the decolonial project more broadly. Rhythmic lines and layered fields of colour have become a prominent language for Masamvu to explore structures of power and how history comes to bear on the contemporary moment, but also how one can adapt to a new way of interacting with the world.
Selected solo exhibitions: 'Show me how ruins make a home,' A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo (2024); 'Exit Wounds,' Goodman Gallery, New York (2024); 'Safety Pin,' Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2023); 'Pivot,' Bernier/Eliades Gallery, Brussels (2023); 'Talk to me while I’m eating,' Goodman
Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2021); 'Hata,' Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2019); 'Still Still,' Goodman Gallery, Cape Town; 'Misheck Masamvu,' Institut Français, Paris, France (2015); 'Disputed Seats,' Influx Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal (2009).
Notable group exhibitions include: 'Kuvhunura/Kupinda nemwenje mudziva,' Fondation Blachere Bonnieux, France (2024); 'Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics,' The Institutum, Singapore (2024); 'Inside Out,' Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Geneva (2022); 'Witness: Afro Perspectives,' El Espacio 23, Miami, USA (2020); 'Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,' Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami (2020); 'Two Together,' Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2020); 'Five Bobh: Painting at the End of an Era,' Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2017); 'Africa 2.0 > is there a Contemporary African art?,' Influx Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2010); 'Art, Migration and Identity,' Africa Museum, Arnhem (2008); and 696, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (2008).
Major international exhibitions include: 'The ‘t’ is silent,' 8th Biennial of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium (2022); 'STILL ALIVE,' 5th Aichi Triennale, Aichi, Japan (2022), NIRIN , 22nd Sydney Biennale, Sydney (2020); 'Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty),' the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016) and his international debut at Zimbabwe’s inaugural Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
Collections include: A4 Arts Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa); Braunsfelder Family Collection (Cologne, Germany); Uieshema Collection (Tokyo, Japan); Perez Art Museum (Miami, USA); Pigozzi Collection (Geneva, Switzerland); Taguchi Art Collection (Tokyo, Japan); Fukutake Foundation (Auckland, New Zealand); COMMA Foundation (Damme, Belgium); ANA Collection (Lagos, Nigeria); Sigg Art Foundation, Le Castellet, France; Fondation Gandur pour l’Art (Geneva, Switzerland); and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Cape Town, South Africa).
Masamvu lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe.
