Mozambique: Butcheca opens ‘The Dance of Shadows’ at Camões Maputo

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Mozambique: Butcheca opens ‘The Dance of Shadows’ at Camões Maputo

4:05 CAT | 16 Sep 2022

Photo courtesy: Embaixada de Portugal em Maputo

An exhibition entitled ‘A Dança das Sombras’, by visual artist Butcheca, one of the most prominent names in the Mozambican contemporary art scene, opened on Monday at the Camoes Institute Gallery.

The exhibition, curated by writer Nelson Saúte, brings together several new works by Butcheca, who lives and works in Catembe.

Butcheca has been working in visual arts for about three decades, having come to reflect on various current themes that worry him. ‘The Dance of Shadows’ is another surprising public individual performance by this artist, with the exhibition of a set of recent works. In the project, conceived for the ‘Camões’ space, Butcheca introduces us to compositions inspired by movement, dance, rituals, masks, identities and cultures that are guided by diversity and simultaneously by a common and unique line.

In each work, his universe is revealed to us through enigmatic environments, almost always achieved using the counterpoint between figurative and abstract. His individual style also stands out, a sublime characteristic of an entire expression evident in most of his paintings and drawings.

As mentioned, the exhibition enjoys the special participation of Nelson Saúte, who prepared an essay entitled ‘Choreographies of the Mozambicanness’. In this interesting reflection on the artist and his creative process, Nelson Saúte says: “This exhibition will be, in the subtle intelligence and inventiveness of its proponent, a rich and revealing celebration of Mozambicanity and testimony to a splendid moment in the life and creation of the painter. Butcheca here endorses his excellent creative phase, his thriving invention, his powerful ability to make metaphors and tell us the social and cultural reality with the mastery of the great inventors. Mocking, sometimes and certainly, the lure of falsehood that the mask represents or the deception or illusion that the shadow does not ignore.”

The exhibition ‘A Dança das Sombras’ is organized by Camões – Centro Cultural Português and sponsored by Millennium BIM. This project is part of the third edition of the Gala Gala Festival, an initiative which has the support of the Delegation of the European Union in Mozambique and brings together in the same week (12 to 18 September) the programming of various cultural spaces in the City of Maputo.

‘A Dança das Sombras is open from Monday to Saturday, between 10 am and 5 pm until October 22.

About the artist:

Moisés Ernesto Matsinhe Mafuiane, known as Butcheca (b. 1978, Maputo) began to paint in the early 1990s. He became a member of the Núcleo de Arte in 1997.

Since 2001, he has held eleven solo exhibitions in Mozambique, Portugal and Japan and participated in numerous group shows in Mozambique and abroad.

He benefited from the Goethe Institute’s Moving Africa programme, visiting and participating in the activities of the Dak’Art Contemporary Art Biennial, 2014.

He has painted murals in Mozambique and Portugal, and has taught painting at the French School Lycée Gustave Eiffel in Maputo since 2015.

His work has recently been featured on various digital platforms such as ARCO E-xhibition 2021, AFRICA EM FOCO, FNB Art Joburg Experience 2020 and ARCO Lisboa 2020 online.

He is represented in several public and private collections in Mozambique and abroad.

He is currently participating in the group exhibition African Identities-Chapter III, within the framework of the AKKAProject, Venice, Italy.

Prizes: Best Future Award (Hollard Seguros), within the scope of the Crescent Collection Exhibition 2020, Kulungwana (Maputo, Mozambique). 2nd Prize at the XIII edition of the TDM Biennial 2015: Contemporary Fine Arts – Possibilities and Contributions, with exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Maputo, Mozambique. Winner of the visual identity creation contest for the Sukiyaki Meets the World Festival 2014, Nanto City, Toyama, Japan.

Source: Camoes Maputo / Press Release