Awefull, Manu

I am a painter of landscapes that reverberates with the idea of place enveloping time.

I was 8 years old, the first time I migrated, and I’ve sprung across borders three more times since. Every death of mine, and new life, has bound me to thinking of place as something that holds many more stories then we are able to consider. I met “home” by understanding my roots as mangrove roots. These start in the head and the heart, and I realized I had been collecting images and relationships to entities that were familiar but slightly different wherever I was. Elements in trees, mosses, mountains, winds, the ocean always in between. Using gouache, acrylic and spray paint my hands echo between scales, large and small, fast and slow, with a high level of detail and repetitive pattern to introduce the environments I carry to something tangible. My work is performed in the studio and public spaces, alone and in community. I am moved to action by anger, fear, confusion, and love. I nurture meditated maximalism as my work has shown me how a collection of many creates a unified collective of  one. In the company of the divisive heaviness that surrounds us in this moment my practice invites space and a novel, peaceful, and quietly provocative approach to that which connects us beyond our lives and deaths.