AFRICA

This series draws from my childhood and adolescence in Angola, where I lived from the age of four to nineteen. It is an exploration of memories formed through encounters with village life, communal rituals, spiritual dances, unfamiliar scents, new foods, and the rhythms of communities whose traditions were profoundly different from my own. The paintings move between fascination and unease. Between the vibrancy of collective spirituality and the harsh realities of poverty, grief, deprivation, and long periods of waiting. Memories of spiritual ceremonies, ritual objects, and what I perceived as magical or mysterious practices become intertwined with images of dried landscapes, exhausted bodies, and the resilience of people living through difficult circumstances.

Rather than attempting to document Angola, the series reflects on how a place becomes embedded within memory. Fragments of colour, scent, movement, ritual, suffering, and silence resurface as an internal landscape, part remembered, part imagined, and continually transformed by time.