Current Review(s)
The Ambiguous Life Sentence of Misheck Masamvu
Misheck Masamvu at blank projectsI realise that what I am about to say is deeply conservative (and I can already hear my critics’ fingers rhythmically beating out a denunciating pamphlet of protest upon all the social networks known to the middle-class civilized world). However, in an art world that is descending into quasi-abstract expressionism – where blobby painting after blobby painting is produced in a tired repetition of three generations ago – what I really want to see in painters’ works is that they are in control of their medium. Show some skill – it’s a piece of old hat, but hats serve some purpose, both practical and aesthetic.
03 April 2014 - 03 May 2014
Listings(s)
'Epitaph'
Misheck Masamvu at blank projects"Life is ash or dust, unless collected in a vessel. Its purpose is a pledge in recompense to bleeding mothers. There are words for every sad or happy moment out of respect of ones’ lifestyle. Silent proclamations are made to reclaim some form of dignity.
Most of us are dust caught on the rooftops or dressed in a white mouse costume corked in a
test tube. Often we dread loneliness through the absence of a colleague or family. The fact that fate cannot be contained or controlled, reminds us of the fragility of our own existence. We fear the repeat of disasters inscribed on the tombs of the unknown. How much of ourselves do we know to stand up and speak on others?
There is no clear-cut solution to restore confidence when we constantly live without promise
of happiness and are surrounded by chaos. Life endured by man, infected by disloyal passions and his undying quest for power, causes direct or indirect contamination in how we handle each other. Witness our corrosive nature in staking a social hierarchy. We are whirlwinds carrying objects of shame, round and round, up in the sky in circles of inhuman behaviour. Who is our master?" - Misheck Masamvu
01 November 2012 - 24 November 2012
'Life Sentence'
Misheck Masamvu at blank projectsblank projects is pleased to present 'Life Sentence', an exhibition of new paintings by Misheck Masamvu.
Following 'Epitaph', his first exhibition at blank projects in 2012, 'Life Sentence' continues to reflect on the fraught political and social situation of the artist's home country, Zimbabwe.
Produced in oils with vigorous brush strokes and intense colors, the paintings depict figures and chimeras, often disfigured and degraded, which seem at times to be trapped in bold colour fields resembling abstracted landscapes or mobs of imagined spectators. In other paintings the background comes to the fore and individual figures subtly shift into focus, playing out ironically absurd scenarios that reflect on the psychosocial and political realities of present day Zimbabwe.
Masamvu's palette is equally uneasy and combative, combining patches of bright primary colours with acidic tones and monochrome scrawl, the surfaces scratched raw by dry brushes or left untreated with seeming disregard which belies a confidence in the formal execution of these works.
Masamvu is of a generation of Zimbabwean painters born at the moment the country gained its independence. Growing up together with the new government, he has and continues to bear witness to Zimbabwe's struggle for stability and social cohesion. His practice addresses this struggle, revealing a tension between opposing forces, evident in both the compositional elements and the subject matter of his paintings.
According to the artist:
'The works attempt to reconcile the notion of freedom in relation to applied statutes. However, the quest to resolve the injustice presiding over the constituency that shapes Life Sentence selectively reveals the theatre in question. It is staged, performed by an audience hypnotized, dressed in lab rat costumes. I have witnessed our struggle in preparing to play host to new ideas, culpable or inflicted. Once those in power regard our existence as raw material, our lives become relevant as servitude to their tenure. The same speech will be repeated until the walls of resistance are broken down, and their words become fact: the adoration of needles and haystacks where presidents are hand-picked. Why are we celebrating freedom? Whose freedom are we commemorating when we are decorating our chests with the ghost-teeth of fallen heroes?'
03 April 2014 - 03 May 2014
