"Winkeba e Nkeba bu Nkaka: protect yourselves and protect others too."
Cristiano Mangovo (b. 1982, Cabinda, Angola) is one of the most prolific painters of Angola's post-war generation, based between Lisbon and Cabinda. A child refugee of the Angolan civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, with further training in urban scenography and performance. His figurative expressionism, with a constant surrealist twist, stages deformed figures with multi-faceted faces and double mouths: vocal, alert characters born as objectors to censorship, through which the artist addresses inequality, ecology and the exercise of power. Winner of the ENSA Arte Prize as best visual artist of Angola (2018) and of the Lusofonia Award (2021), he exhibited at the Angola Pavilion of Expo Milano 2015 and has shown across Europe, Africa and the Americas. His works are held in the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art and the Museu da Presidência da República, Lisbon, among others.