Le pouvoir spirituel et la domination culturelle
[Spiritual power and cultural domination]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Mensonges des maladies, contagieuse
[Lies about diseases, contagious]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
La recherche de la santé
[Research on health]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Ke mbeli ya minu mibale
[A double edged sword]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Tête du pouvoir
[Head of power]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Prison
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
[Spiritual power and cultural domination]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Mensonges des maladies, contagieuse
[Lies about diseases, contagious]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
La recherche de la santé
[Research on health]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Ke mbeli ya minu mibale
[A double edged sword]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Tête du pouvoir
[Head of power]
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
Prison
2020
297 × 420 mm
Marker on paper
1 —
Central to this drawing is a composite figure between a human and a butterfly stretching its arms to both limits, descending onto a fire, creating tension between two forces that equally symbolize destruction and creation. Several worlds meet; the fantastic and the real, the concrete and the inconcrete, emerging and fading spirits. Detailed heads, faces and eyes communicate with shadowed silhouettes; chains move into shapes of animals, or remain abstract memories, speaking of spirits and beings reincarnating into the visible world, as well as the difficulties of creatures to live the freedom of their lives, controlled by omnipresent, looming powers. The drawing condemns the chains that hold people in poverty and impact culture in negative manners.
2 — Within an agglomeration of scattered houses, a pregnant women lies on the floor, birthing an infant, that pushes through her bleeding belly. From the infant’s mouth, flames rise, like a wordless scream. Below their separating unity, human shapes run left and right, while two flame-screaming, floating creatures chase them. Here, Nada Tshibwabwa reflects the sorrow emerging from contagious diseases, branching out, separating communities, confronting life with death and vice versa. A word game within the painting “Cont-A-Gieuses” (“contagese”, i.e. contagious) and “Conte-A-Jouer” (story about play) relates a double meaning. It refers to the sophisticated game “Nzanga,” played mainly by young women, where participants have to jump over a moving rope, demanding constant vigilance and fast reactivity.
3 — A hunter, with bow and arrow, aims at a multitude of birds, who are being shot mercilessly while they fly, falling into a bowl, soon ready to be cooked. A cow lets its milk drip. Another, magnified udder is dripping more milk onto the hands of the hunter, as if coming from the skies. A detached hand is writing with an arrow “A LA RECHERCHE DES VIE POUR LA SANTE.”
Whilst acknowledging the need of human beings to hunt down animals for their own survival, and constantly be on the search for new sources of energy through the food we consume, Nada Tshibwabwa draws our attention to our own blindness. While chasing birds, of which many are necessary to feed us and for which some precious arrows are lost, we ignore the milk-giving cow, that may feed us well and more abundantly.
4 — A heart shaped, warrior like creature is holding a sword, while birds move away from it, looking like arrows, sent by the heart. With this drawing Nada Tshibwabwa intends to show the double edged nature of love – not just romantic love but love in a more general sense. For the artist love is very close to hate and can be mobilised as a form of manipulation, when it comes to motivating people to go to war against another people for instance. One can also observe that the heart can be read as much as parts of male as well as female genitals.
5 — This almost perfectly circular head, with trimmed hair and beard, with squeezed eyes, nose and lips, seems to be swollen beyond normal proportions, as if it were a balloon. It is made of many small dots, coming together to give it shape. The fact that the artist entitled this drawing “head of power” is probably telling enough.
6 — This drawing, representing an explicitly male figure, can remind us of power figures, and is tearing a chain apart. The figure speaks of the duality of good and evil, represented in the decorations of the figure, and the power of culture to free forces.
2 — Within an agglomeration of scattered houses, a pregnant women lies on the floor, birthing an infant, that pushes through her bleeding belly. From the infant’s mouth, flames rise, like a wordless scream. Below their separating unity, human shapes run left and right, while two flame-screaming, floating creatures chase them. Here, Nada Tshibwabwa reflects the sorrow emerging from contagious diseases, branching out, separating communities, confronting life with death and vice versa. A word game within the painting “Cont-A-Gieuses” (“contagese”, i.e. contagious) and “Conte-A-Jouer” (story about play) relates a double meaning. It refers to the sophisticated game “Nzanga,” played mainly by young women, where participants have to jump over a moving rope, demanding constant vigilance and fast reactivity.
3 — A hunter, with bow and arrow, aims at a multitude of birds, who are being shot mercilessly while they fly, falling into a bowl, soon ready to be cooked. A cow lets its milk drip. Another, magnified udder is dripping more milk onto the hands of the hunter, as if coming from the skies. A detached hand is writing with an arrow “A LA RECHERCHE DES VIE POUR LA SANTE.”
Whilst acknowledging the need of human beings to hunt down animals for their own survival, and constantly be on the search for new sources of energy through the food we consume, Nada Tshibwabwa draws our attention to our own blindness. While chasing birds, of which many are necessary to feed us and for which some precious arrows are lost, we ignore the milk-giving cow, that may feed us well and more abundantly.
4 — A heart shaped, warrior like creature is holding a sword, while birds move away from it, looking like arrows, sent by the heart. With this drawing Nada Tshibwabwa intends to show the double edged nature of love – not just romantic love but love in a more general sense. For the artist love is very close to hate and can be mobilised as a form of manipulation, when it comes to motivating people to go to war against another people for instance. One can also observe that the heart can be read as much as parts of male as well as female genitals.
5 — This almost perfectly circular head, with trimmed hair and beard, with squeezed eyes, nose and lips, seems to be swollen beyond normal proportions, as if it were a balloon. It is made of many small dots, coming together to give it shape. The fact that the artist entitled this drawing “head of power” is probably telling enough.
6 — This drawing, representing an explicitly male figure, can remind us of power figures, and is tearing a chain apart. The figure speaks of the duality of good and evil, represented in the decorations of the figure, and the power of culture to free forces.