Massa Lemu

Massa Lemu is a visual artist and writer from Malawi whose multi-disciplinary practice takes the form of painting, drawing, and performance and text based conceptual work. His art works are challenging and have, in the past, used interventions, confrontations and descriptions that interrogate the social space that people, around the world, live in.

Early Life or Background

Massa Lemu was born in 1979 in Blantyre. Lemu got his early education in various primary schools in different townships othe city of his birth. His earliest artistic influence is his late uncle, David Zuze who painted as a hobby. As an early primary-school going kid, Lemu used to watch his uncle paint late into the night. Later, Lemu honed his drawing and painting skills under the informal guidance of the cartoonist Brian Hara, the painter Lad Kalonde, and sculptor Peter Masina.

Education

Lemu received his Bachelor of Education Degree (with a major in Fine Arts) from the University of Malawi in 2003 and Master of Arts in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design (USA) in 2009. He has shown his work in a number of galleries in Malawi and the United States.

• 2014- PhD student in Visual Arts (Theory) at University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa

• 2009: M.A. Painting Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah, Georgia

• 2003: B.Ed. Fine Art Chancellor College University of Malawi Zomba, Malawi

• 1994-1999 Chichiri Secondary School

Art Career

Lemu’s work has been reviewed in publications including Texphrastic, Cite (Houston, Texas), Reflections (Blantyre, Malawi) and Steve Chimombo's book titled Aids, Artists and Authors (Zomba, Malawi). He has also taught courses in painting and art history at Chancellor College of University of Malawi and Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Style and technique

Lemu’s paintings fuse natural and imaginary elements to create compositions that hover between the concrete and the abstract, the real and the surreal, the familiar and the unfamiliar. They combine the real such as plant and animal parts and the surreal to comment on the effects of human exploitative activities on nature.

His recent performances and text-based conceptual artworks contain witty critique of the practices in the art institution and have also commented on issues of skewed globalization, labor and migration.

Exhibitions

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2013:

• PRECARIOT (Lawndale Arts Center, Houston)

2012:

• Passages for the Undocumented (Rice University, Houston)

• Stranded Fishes and Masks on Wheelchairs (Malawian Embassy, Washington DC)

2006:

• This Scourge is also a Mask (French Cultural Center, Blantyre)

• Primal Forces (Capital Hotel, Lilongwe)

2003:

• Multiple Suns (French Cultural Center, Blantyre)

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013:

• Do It. A Hans Ulrich Obrist Collaboration, (Houston)
• First Aid Kit (Rice University, Houston)

2012:

• Of Other Spaces (Dallas)
• Dallas Biennale (Dallas)

2011:

• Houston Art Fair, (Houston)
• Material Traces; Selections from Core 2011 (Dallas)

2009:

• An Evenly Measured Space (Savannah)

2008:

• 404/912, conceptual works by artists from Atlanta and Savannah (Atlanta)

Publications

As a writer, Lemu has been published in the following:

• 2014: For the Ranter the Whole World is a Playground C& online magazine http://www.contemporaryand.com
• 2013: What Part of Love is Universal? C& Magazine
• 2013: Dialogue; The Progress of Love The Menil Collection and Pulitzer Foundation, http://www.theprogressoflove.com
• 2012: Danfo, Molue and the Afropolitan Experience in Emeka Ogboh’s Soundscapes 2011-2012http://www.artandeducation.net/paper/danfo-molue-and-the-afropolitan-experience-in-emeka-ogbohs-soundscapes/
• CORE Catalogue Museum of Fine Art, Houston

Acadamia

Lemu was a Critical Studies Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2010 to 2012 where he is researched and wrote about contemporary African art. Lemu is currently researching on the biopolitics of contemporary African art collectives as a PhD student at University of Stellenbosch.2010-2012:

• Core Critical Studies Fellow Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas

2004-2010:

• Full Time Lecturer in Art History/ Theory (African and Western) and Studio Practice Chancellor College, University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi

2010-2011:

• Lecturer in Drawing, Rice University, Houston Texas

See also

• Kay Chiromo

External links

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/lawndaleartcenter/8745652668/in/photostream/
• http://www.texphrastic.com/poetic-terrorism-switch-your-gestalt-massa-lemu-at-rices-emergency-room-gallery/*
• http://glasstire.com/2012/11/07/brochure-for-those-in-flight/
• http://offcite.org/2012/06/07/massa-lemu-on-bayou-fish-cyborgs

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