The exhibition at the Henry Tayali gallery on Friday evening was an amalgamation of work from the Insaka residency programme and portraits done by local artists.
The portraits represented a breadth of subjects and acted as a kind of visual journey, demonstrating work from artists at various stages in their development both technically and conceptually. The Insaka residency programme had played host to three women artists – Mercy Moyo from Zimbabwe, Misozi Moyo from Zambia and Sable Weldemanuel from Ethiopia. Their residency lasted 5 weeks.
Misozi Moyo
Misozi Moyo's pieces revealed an interest in local culture – paintings of clay pots for example - but her talent became apparent when looking at her abstract pieces. Her ability to emulate the random texturing of pain of Pollack and marrying this with an innate understanding of colour and pattern was fascinating. Her abstract work on first glance seems chaotic but on closer inspection one could see a method or narrative in the paintings. With the careful juxtaposition of random form with repetition, she successfully marries order with chaos.
Mercy Moyo
It was easy to identify Mercy Moyo's paintings her visual voice is 
loud and proud in each of her detailed and fluid paintings. Whether working on huge sheets of transparent plastic or more conventional canvases, her style shines through with vibrancy and generosity. Her subjects are often people but she also excels in depicting urban landscapes. The proportions of her people are often reminiscent of Paula Rego and her stylistic sensibility is impressionistic, however her intuitive use of earth –tones places these works firmly in Africa.
Sable Weldamanuel
Sable Weldamanuel's use of local materials and ephemera we used boldly on large canvases. Labels and logos from Zambia seemed to speak of the artist as an outsider, discovering, in the superficial and throwaway an identity of a country. Her work showed an ambitiousness and her fearlessness in attempting new paths of creativity.
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