In Misheck Masamvu’s solo exhibition Still Still, the painter expands on a body of work begun in Still at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg from earlier in 2016. The title of the show reflects repetition as a crucial reflex for Masamvu, with motifs and marks being replicated over and over. It is both a nod to the previous exhibition and a statement of progress; the artist growing what he terms his ‘grammar’, through seemingly indefatigable reiterations. This grammar comprises expressive brushwork, chaotic compositions and perpetually altered or mutated figures that he often depicts between states of animal and human.
As a resident Zimbabwean, Masamvu’s work is inevitably situated within the socio-economic realities of living in a failed system. The human figure is found in a space of limbo; subject to an unstable environment and in varying states of distress or transition. The artist, however, rails against an overt political reading in his work: “I think what I find quite sad is the idea of politics being pushed in as part of the content. I’m not saying politics are not important but are more of an element within everything else. What really shapes the whole narrative in my work is surviving the politics but not talking about the politics.”
He speaks of each painting as a proposal for a new reality, an arena for him to work through personal hopes and frustrations but also to offer alternatives, for himself and others, to the constraints and constructs of daily reality. Masamvu states, “My work does not have a specific location, it doesn’t have a specific background.” There is a sense that he is inviting the viewer to attempt to place themselves in that undefined and disorienting space.
Masamvu uses colour atypically to achieve that disorientation. In the catalogue to the group show Working Title, held at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg in 2012, critic Sean O’Toole writes that the painter “purposefully uses colours in ways that destabilize their fixed metonymic qualities… it can even be a way to impede a viewer’s entry into a painting.” Contradiction and contrast operate at every level of Masamvu’s works in Still Still. Line is obfuscated by repetitive mark-making and then clarified in a series of accompanying drawings, figures are deformed then ultimately reconstituted, and overarching all this is a constant pull between representation and abstraction.
Misheck Masamvu was born in Penhalonga, Zimbabwe in 1980 and currently lives and works in Harare where he also facilitates and mentors the work of peers and aspiring artists. He trained at Atelier Delta, Harare and Kunste Akademie in Munich, Germany. He has participated in many major exhibitions and events including the 54th Venice Biennale, where he represented Zimbabwe, as well as the Sao Tome and Dakar Biennales. His work was included on the Cape Town leg of New Revolutions, a group show looking back on 50 years of the Goodman Gallery.
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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.
