SIDE SIDE(ii)
NAMAFU AMUTSE AND CANDICE MOUTON
An exhibition of photographs and paintings
FEBRUARY - MARCH, 2023
SIDE BY SIDE, Namafu Amutse and Candice Mouton
This exhibition is the first in the 2023 Side by Side exhibition series curated by StArt Art Gallery. The premise of the Side by Side exhibition series is juxtaposition. By placing two artists’ works side by side, we bring them into proximity, presenting interesting dialogues and creating space for unique interpretations.
Namafu Amutse and Candice Mouton met while at school and became good friends when in 2014 they travelled to Germany together for a month after winning a German Speaking competition held at the Goethe Institut in Windhoek. They are both young, self taught artists in the early stages of their creative careers. While Amutse works predominantly in the digital realm, creating photographs and videos, Mouton is a painter and illustrator. Despite using very different mediums, the two artists share a similar impetus for their works on display in this show. In this exhibition, Amutse’s photographs and Mouton’s paintings portray intimate moments relating to childhood.
Mouton uses a surrealistic approach to evoke the imaginative, whimsical mind of a child while addressing mature themes such as identity, responsibility and pragmatism. Mouton describes, “When creating my work, my goal is to produce art that depicts the obstacles and challenges of growing up and being an adult against the backdrop of a child’s mind, where wonder and dreams are born”. This approach relates not only to the content and conceptual basis of the works, but also in their creation. Mouton tries to work in a way that allows space for spontaneity, recalling an instinctive process often embraced in childhood and lost to the challenges and bureaucracy of adulthood and growing up. In a layered mix of a portrait, balloons, clouds and the words ‘what if it rains tomorrow?’, the painting ‘Gravity’ “speaks on the theme of fearing the worst and as a result, losing yourself in the what ifs and ultimately forgetting to be present”.
Like Mouton, Amutse’s photographs position the human figure at their centre, exploring portraiture and the human experience. Two photo series by Amutse are presented here and both take the relationship between young brothers as their focus. Embracing joy and imagination
is the foundation of the ‘Soft’ series. They exude intimacy and levity, which fulfil the artist’s desire to “[contribute] towards diversifying images of Black masculinity”. Amutse explains, “The visuals that we often encounter concerning Black boys and Black men, portray the constant stereotypes of violence, aggression, and hypersexualisation, dehumanising the Black man and making him feel as if he is a one-dimensional being in a world where it is so clear that his existence is multifaceted.”
Like the ‘Soft’ series, the photographs in the ‘Chrysalis’ series are taken at the seaside in Amutse’s hometown, Swakopmund. In this series, the young men depicted have fabric draped and stretched over their bodies and faces. Along with the title of the series, these scenes evoke feelings of change and evolution associated with the transition of a pupa to an adult butterfly or moth. Amutse says, “This photo series explores the body’s movement and blossoming through life’s stages: [from] suffering, pain, and trauma to the joys of living, loving, and belonging by being reborn and reshaped, and by allowing one’s imagination to become a reality.”
Incorporating ideas and visuals from the natural world can be seen across both artists’ work. Mouton uses plant and flower iconography, which too come with connotations of life cycles and growth. Both ‘The Embrace’ and ‘The Bud’ make use of flowers in combination with portraiture. In ‘The Embrace’, an anthropomorphic flower takes on the human experience. Mouton describes the scene, “A flower embraces her dire situation of being in a dry and desolate space and she enjoys a picnic in a moment of stoic silence”.. On closer inspection of ‘The Bud’, silhouettes or shadows of flowers lie across the subject's face, creating an additional physical and conceptual layer that contrasts the bright playfulness of the yellow flowers with a darker and heavier weight. Mouton describes this piece as a “portrait that depicts the ongoing internal search for happiness”.
Amutse and Mouton’s photographs and paintings bring together elements of the surreal in proximity with the real and natural world to emphasise creativity and imagination. They draw on the associations of joy and playfulness of childhood to juxtapose the anxieties of adulthood. Though tensions are created, these artworks resist a strict dichotomy of imagination and reality, and encourage the viewer to recall and embrace childlike freedoms in their day to day adult life.
Namafu Amutse
Soft vii, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 594 x 420mm
Soft like the fur on your teddy bear
Soft like a father’s kisses
Even in the air
Soft because you care
Because you dare
Soft like your tenderness about to appear
Soft like crushing hypermasculinity to fineness
So fine you see it disappear
Soft because you are not made of steel
You are flesh, bone and blood
Liquid, gold and feel
You are made of heart
Gentle smiles and feathered hugs
Soft like the rays of the sun
Free, like the waves that come
Soft like crushing hypermasculinity to fineness
So fine you see it disappear
- Namafu AmutseNamafu Amutse
Above: Soft i, ii and iii, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 210 x 148mm
Right: Soft x, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 420 x 297mm
Candice
Namafu Amutse
Left:
Chrysalis iv, 2020 (printed
2023), Digital Print on Fine Art
Rag, Edition of 3, 210 x 148mm
Right: Chrysalis iii, 2020 (printed
2023), Digital Print on Fine Art
Rag, Edition of 3, 420 x 297mm
Namafu Amutse
Chrysalis v, 2020 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 594 x 420mm
Chrysalis
Two boys by the Atlantic Ocean
Moving like the earth in motion
And though the sun hid behind a mask of clouds
And chasing winds came in contact with their skin
Still they stood there
Feeling the rocks beneath their feet
Chills down their spines
As water passes through their fingertips
Still they stand and say
Don’t worry, O Great One
We come in peace
Admiring only your beauty
And what lies beneath and within
- Namafu AmutseNamafu Amutse
Chrysalis vi, 2020 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 420 x 297mm
Right: Chrysalis vii, 2020 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
Namafu Amutse
Left: Soft ix, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 420 x 297mm
Left: Soft iv, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm Soft vi, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
Right: Soft v, 2021 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
Namafu Amutse
Candice Mouton, Faint Whispers, 2023, Acrylic paint on canvas, 1189 x 841mm
Namafu Amutse
Top: Chrysalis ii, 2020 (printed 2023),
Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
Chrysalis i, 2020 (printed 2023),
Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
Right: Chrysalis viii, 2020 (printed 2023), Digital Print on Fine Art Rag, Edition of 3, 297 x 210mm
NAMAFU AMUTSE (b. 1998) is a self taught multidisciplinary artist from Swakopmund, Namibia. She is currently pursuing a Bachelors of Education Honours degree in English and German at the University of Namibia. Her work is fuelled by Southern African tradition, feminism, and Futurism and her focus is on centering black perspectives. In October 2020, Amutse had her first solo exhibition titled ‘Bright Eyes Into Afrofuturism’ curated by Efano Efano Gallery in Windhoek. Over the last couple of years, her work has been shown internationally in Dubai and London.
in architecture and spatial design, with a focus on portraying how space and cultural identity are intrinsically linked. She is passionate about visually communicating African ideas as well as the process of storytelling through visual art.
‘Side by Side’ is the first formal exhibition that Mouton has participated in.
THE SIDE BY SIDE SERIES AND START ART GALLERY
In 2018 StArt Art Gallery curated a two person exhibition at the Goethe Institut of Namibia showing sculptures by Ismael Shivute and Matheus Alfeus. The exhibition was titled ‘Side by Side’. Four years later, while reflecting on our curatorial practice, we realised that we would like to continue working in this manner and in homage to our first two-person show we have revived the exhibition title.
StArt Art Gallery was established in 2017 in Windhoek and works with some of Namibia’s most exciting contemporary artists to curate critical projects that add to the growing archive of information available to researchers, collectors and art enthusiasts.
For any enquiries please contact:
info@startartgallery.com
+264 81 337 6582
www.startartgallery.com