For his new solo exhibition, Congolese-born, South African-based artist Tusevo Landu draws on his own experience of moving between places, cultures and family histories.
Masks appear throughout the paintings, often covering the faces of his figures. They come from Landu’s interest in Congolese ceremonial traditions, but here they are used less as historical objects than as a way of thinking about what people carry with them: ancestry, memory and the influence of where they come from.
The surface of the paintings has its own story. Landu works in oil on repurposed shade cloth, a material he first encountered through his mother, a tailor who used it to make temporary stalls while selling clothes at flea markets. That connection gives the material a personal weight, tying the work back to family, labour and everyday life.
Shade cloth is also an awkward painting surface. Its rough, open weave resists the smooth application of paint, forcing Landu to work with its texture rather than against it. Layers of oil build across the grid, giving the paintings a physical sense of time and accumulation.
That material history is central to Where We Become. Rather than presenting identity as something settled, Landu shows it as something built gradually from family, culture, place and experience – with the past remaining present even as circumstances change.
About the artist
Tusevo Landu (b. 1997, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a multidisciplinary artist based in South Africa. He trained at Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg and works across painting, printmaking, drawing and mixed media.
Landu has presented solo exhibitions at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town in 2026, Everard Read Cape Town in 2024 and Simchowitz in Pasadena, California, in 2022. His work is held in collections including the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Africa South Art Initiative, Cape Grace Hotel and Simchowitz.
Images courtesy of WORLDART and Tusevo Landu.
Exhibition Dates
1–29 October 2026
Location
WORLDART
68 Long Street
Cape Town
