SPOTLIGHT 3: Expanding Figuration: Transformation Territories

Born in Cabinda into an artistic family, Benigno Mangovo developed an early passion for painting. He has been exclusively dedicated to his artistic career since 2017, when he joined Patrício Mawete's painting studio in Luanda, a space that significantly contributed to a growing formalization of his artistic production. Mangovo describes his creative process as generally introspective, drawing on personal experiences, memories, and reflections as sources of reference. His work includes recurring themes such as memory, dreams, emotions, family and interpersonal relationships, and subject-object relations, as well as hope, resilience, human fragility, and its infinite and singular capacity for reinvention and rebirth.

 

His production is marked by recurrent experimentation aimed at reinventing texture, depth, and color balance. A process that often involves a standardized construction of an identity-related nature, which aesthetically resembles the idea of the existence of circuits of energetic, symbiotic, or synaptic exchange. Patterns that have shaped, over several years, the scenic construction of the background of his canvases, in a distinctive aesthetic-stylistic conception, of a semiotic nature, based on the exploration of signs and the processing of signs inherent in the tradition of the province of Cabinda - where the artist is from - the living space of the local forest, and the universe of vernacular and spiritual culture. In 2022, Benigno Mangovo was selected to participate in the 2nd edition of the NESR Art Foundation's artistic residency in Angola, and in 2023, he embraced a new artistic residency, this time in Morocco, organized by the Arkane association.

Gonçalo Mabunda is a Mozambican artist and anti-war activist. His work is rooted in the collective memory of his country and stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. In creating his works, he draws inspiration from the rich traditions of African art and dance, infusing them with a sense of cultural heritage and identity, while displaying a modernist sensibility. Through his art, Mabunda invites audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about the human condition and the legacy of conflict. His works are a reminder of the enduring power of creativity to provoke reflection, inspire change and create connections that transcend borders and generations. Having grown up in the context of the Mozambican Civil War, his work serves as a poignant reflection on collective memory and the political legacy of his country. His artistic practice began within the framework of a project implemented in 1995 by the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM). This project travelled across the country collecting weapons from individuals and communities after a civil war that had lasted almost twenty years. Some of the weapons collected were destroyed, while others were deactivated and given to men and women such as Mabunda, who transformed them into art. Since the launch of the project, entitled Transforming Arms into Hope, around 800,000 weapons have been collected.