Artist statement   

 

(…Individuals have more than one identity:

They have one that is based on similarities and a unity which comes from belonging to shared culture and one that is based on an active process of identification.

That responds to points of difference and is therefore always evolving through a continuous play of history, culture and power…)

 Stuart Hall, cultural theorist and sociologist.

 

 “My work has been entirely dedicated to the search and representation of my own identification as a southerner, from southern Angola. Taking into account that I am a "cross over" of three ethnicities from southern Angola and northern Namibia and Portuguese.

This search, identification and representation is reflected in the fluidity of the "dances" in forms and "aromas" that the colors emanate the hit of the Kaokoland, Namibe and Kalahari deserts. Rhythms and contrasts of some materials on my work can mirror de cold square streets of Lisbon, Paris or Amsterdam.

My work is entirely abstract expressionism, though I take responsibility for having ignored the "rules" of” abstracism”: in Latin, Abstrahere which means: "to let be", the absence of harmony, composition, insertion of light, perspective etc.

More and more I am feeling the urge of adding more unconventional materials to the canvas, making the canvas a playground ghetto, quoting Rothco: ( ...arena in which to act...).

In addition, I focus on the diaspora theme, starting with my own diaspora, to name some refugee camps in Namibia, then South West Africa. I went to Portugal where I also have roots, grandson of a Portuguese soldier who had settled in Angola due to the colonial war…And moreover, issues as “Mare nostrum” and all that African exodus through the Mediterranean see.”