Misheck Masamvu | Safety Pin | 2023
Goodman Gallery presents Safety Pin, an exhibition of new paintings and a sculptural installation by Misheck Masamvu. The artist combines striking colour with a distinct expressionist style to create tumultuous landscapes, representing the confessional vulnerability that lies at the heart of his practice. Safety Pin uses intergenerational relationships as the primary source with an emphasis on maternal links. Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, the exhibition also addresses the past while searching for a way of being present – with dignity – in this world.
This exhibition leans towards abstraction formed through frenetic mark-making through which the artist works through his fears, anxieties and dreams. The title is suggestive of a precarious holding together all of the feelings, thoughts and reflections that feed the work.
Layered painted surfaces and brushstrokes exist as remnants of the physical act of painting and give the sense that multiple temporalities have been embedded within each image. The irregular, erratic swipes of paint and chaotic compositions mimic the artist’s desire to let emotions manifest without being expressed through recognisable forms. In this way the scenes that appear on canvas collectively become confessional expressions, in turn allowing viewers to access their own vulnerabilities.
Artworks
About
Misheck Masamvu
Misheck Masamvu (b. 1980, Penhalonga, Zimbabwe) explores and comments on the socio-political setting of post-independence Zimbabwe, and draws attention to the impact of economic policies that sustain political mayhem. Masamvu raises questions and ideas around the state of ‘being’ and the preservation of dignity. His practice encompasses drawing, painting and sculpture.
Masamvu studied at Atelier Delta and Kunste Akademie in Munich, where he initially specialised in the realist style, and later developed a more avant-garde expressionist mode of representation with dramatic and graphic brushstrokes. His work deliberately uses this expressionist depiction, in conjunction with controversial subject matter, to push his audience to levels of visceral discomfort with the purpose of accurately capturing the plight, political turmoil and concerns of his Zimbabwean subjects and their experiences. His works serve as a reminder that the artist is constantly socially-engaged and is tasked with being a voice to give shape and form to a humane sociological topography. In 2020, Masamvu took part in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney.
Masamvu’s work has been well-received and exhibited in numerous shows including Armory Show 2018, Art Basel 2018, Basel Miami Beach 2017, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair New York 2016, São Paulo Biennale 2016, and the Venice Biennale, Zimbabwe Pavillion 2011.
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