May 11 in UTC+2 in Antwerp Belgium.
Born in 1980 in Mozambique, Olga Dengo is a self-taught contemporary artist-painter from the vibrant capital of Maputo. At the national Artist Association “Nucléo de Arte” many great masters started their career. Their spontaneous debates and instinctive teachin…g pass on knowledge and skills to next generations. Olga started painting in this creative laboratory, collaborating with other emerging artists and intellectuals from various disciplines (sculpture, literature, painting, installation, music, poetry, ceramics, …).
This immersion into art and the “master– apprentice–colleague” relationship was Olga’s own version of art academy.
Not dictated by the western canons but rooted in the true history and society of the continent.
Olga’s paintings can therefore not be judged using the western framework of artistic currents.
In her paintings, Olga uses altered symbols or (religious) characters from the three continents she has been living on (Africa, Asia, Europe) and works towards mutual understanding and interaction. The unusual colour combinations contrast with words, text fragments and symbols, leading to powerful, sometimes overwhelming paintings. Many painters avoid the difficult colour black, Olga transfers it into a lively, happy tint. She plays with the exotic expectations of the viewers and positively misleads them towards new surprises.
And no, her work is not inspired by or a derivative of Miro, Picasso, Klee, Basquiat or Harring. (Not that it should matter if it is.) It is mainly inspired by and derived from an artistic culture that is much older than those three artists. Not stating this fact would be to limit cultural and art history to a simple, single and skewed narrative. One may choose not to go borrow a cup of water from someone else’s bucket if she lives on the banks of the river itself.