Cassi Namoda’s work explores the history and culture of post-colonial Africa, especially the exchange between vernacular traditions and Portuguese colonialism in the Lusophone continent.
Namoda’s syncretic paintings are woven from a capacious symbolic language—she references global mythologies, indigenous folk art, European painting traditions, colonial power systems and more in her dreamlike narratives and sensual landscapes. Characters and motifs (conjoined twins, fierce suns) recur within these intimate tableaux, often bolstered by references to literary, cinematic and architectural aesthetics. Washed colors, bold compositions and flat perspective further the paintings’ aura of magical realism. The result is often a sense of romance and saudade injected into modernity and the art historical canon.
Her work is collected by several important museums, including The Pérez Art Museum in Miami, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Jumex in Mexico City and X Museum in Beijing, and she has held solo exhibitions at a number of notable galleries, including Xavier Hufkens and Goodman Gallery. Namoda was born in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1988, and has also lived in Kenya, Uganda, Benin, Haiti, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and the United States. Currently she divides her time between New York and Italy.
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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:
Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
MACAAL, Marrakesh, Morocco
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Inhotim, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico
X Museum, Beijing, China
Long Museum, Shanghai, China