Cristiano Mangovo
Lives & Works in Lisbon, Portugal.
Cristiano Mangovo currently lives and works between Luanda and Lisbon, but earned his degree in Fine Art from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa with additional urban scenography and performance training.
Mangovo grew up as a refugee in the Democratic Republic of Congo and spent most of his professional career in Angola's turbulent society. With a strong activist slant, his work often appeals to the need to protect weaker people from the stronger, calling for more balanced societies. Mangovo has developed various styles and symbolism in his paintings and collages over the years, but always with a distinct surrealist twist. In more recent years, his work has been dominated by an expressionistic style, painting deformed characters with multi-faceted faces without a complete real-life form.
Group exhibitions include Beyond Boundaries, THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE, (2023); Reflect #2: Fragments, Fragilities, Memories, The Museum of African Art, Belgrade (2022); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London (2022, 2021) and Spaces in Between, Old Palace, Lisbon (2019).
Cristiano Mangovo will be presented by THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE.
Cristiano Mangovo, Papa Sese 1, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 170 x 208 cm. Courtesy of the artist and THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE Gallery.
