Teresa Kutala Firmino

Teresa Kutala Firmino (1993, Pomfret, South Africa) is a multimedia artist, based in Johannesburg, working with paint, photography, soft sculptures and performance. Her work negotiates trauma both personal and collective in her everyday life. Her paintings are constructed scenes of the past and present, which are sometimes intertwined. For this work, Firmino carefully collects images from magazines, newspapers, historical documents and social media, and places them in colourful, box-like stages. This creates surreally baroque scenes which take place in tightly confined interiors, where the characters have the opportunity to re-enact their stories or construct new ones. This process allows Firmino to create alternative past, present and future narratives of Africa, thus rebuilding her own archive of African history.