“Interior Landscapes” is the title of the exhibition by Mozambican artist Suzy Bila, part of the parallel exhibitions of Art Macao, Macau International Art Biennale 2023. The painting works are on display at Artyzen Grand Lapa Macau Hotel Lobby, organised and curated by Amagao Gallery.
Suzy Bila, who stands out from the diaspora, paints emotions in deep monotonous tones, which grow with the imagination and pull at life experiences that are sometimes inaccessible or unattainable due to the interference of the pressure of the days.
The huge screens that cover the field of vision, as if summoning us to the immersion that escapes the days, is able to attract to a set of sensations, making the message vary from the personality of each one. That is the value of Suzy Bila’s creation, the appreciator is considered part of the process, the one who gives meaning to the work.
In the show “Interior Landscapes“, whose selection of works was made with Amagao Gallery, which travelled to the artist’s studio in Alentejo, Portugal, Suzy exposes the interior from a divergent world. The pandemic times are said to have affected her creative process, such as the narratives of life, existentialism and the conflicts of the inner soul.
“My relationship with art is a practice that embraces life as a response to questions. I live from dynamic processes subject to the influences of a world in metamorphosis. Of life reflecting different contemporary universes. Of problems that continually embrace the world,” she explains.
This way of seeing the world from the spirituality and complexity of the human soul, makes Suzy Bila be in another dimension of art. One that does not segment or fragment. It removes the appreciator from this condition, so that he can mould the worlds he has at his core. “Art flows into different territories spontaneously, and it is with them that I learn to understand the fluidity of a path to spiritual liberation and physical and biological ties,” she says.
It gives us the feeling that the soul is an empty place that needs art to be filled. Or else, because we don’t see everything and hence the voids, the absences, the probable anguish and the attempt we have to fill the spaces on her monochrome canvas.
Perhaps this is explained by the artist’s own words. “In my artistic path, each moment is charged with its own intensity, I do not foresee the end, everything is life.”
The exhibition “Interior Landscapes” can be seen until 06 October 2023. Suzy Bila, whose official name is Maria Suzete Bila, besides being a visual artist, is a writer and educator. She was born on 23 August 1974 in the city of Maputo and began her artistic career in 1993, in the studio of the Mozambican artist, Noel Langa. She published the children’s book “Lamura” (2021) by the Portuguese School of Mozambique.
By Eduardo Quive
