Through her paintings, Cassi Namoda humanizes the lives and stories of often neglected and erased historical actors. Namoda imagines and renders figures previously deemed by society as unworthy of hagiographic visual depiction. The figures she depicts come to her through her own dreams, thoughts, and photographs that she astutely interrogates. She was born in Maputo, Mozambique, but to see her as a Mozambican painter is a narrow lens on her expansive and performative practice that spans from Mozambique to Los Angeles and now East Hampton, New York. (She also grew up partly in Benin, Haiti, and the United States.) Namoda is accustomed to her audiences not knowing how to place her and her artwork. She does not feel the need to fit into artificial collection categories, such as “African” or “American.” She is proudly peripatetic in her travels and artistic influences, which specifically range from German Expression to the late Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti. Part of her practice involves looking at family, documentary, and colonial photographs. She is attentive to the perspective of photographers, but keenly interested in how photographed sitters look back at the camera. Painting is a way to see from the limits of photography and to imagine anew. Through illustrated moments in time, viewpoints, and emotions that are too easily dismissed, her ultimate aim is to challenge audiences to consider the pain and joy of others.

Namoda is coming off a busy 2020. At the start of the year, she opened at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London, Little is Enough for Those in Love. She finished the year with To Live Long is To See Much, her first show in South Africa at Goodman Gallery’s Johannesburg location (November 21, 2020 to January 16, 2021). Namoda spoke from East Hampton, New York to AIAC contributor, Drew Thompson, about her recent exhibitions, the personal histories that inspire her, and how she situates her work within the rich lineage of mostly male Mozambican artists that have preceded her.