Cristiano Mangovo (1982) is an Angolan visual artist currently based between Lisbon, Portugal and Cabinda, Angola. As a child, he fled the Angolan Civil War to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he went on to study at the Academy Des Beaux-Arts. Many of his paintings touch on the cultural differences between his two homes.
The artist’s experiences in Angola have led him to advocate for social and environmental change through his artwork. His unique style combines surreal and expressionistic elements, painting distorted, multi-faceted faces, often with two mouths. The emphasis is less on the representation of the individual and more on the evocation of personality, movement, and the convergence of figure and object to showcase Mangovo’s thought. Through including multiple eyes and mouths on his figures, Mangovo represents vocal figures who are alert and open. He frequently discusses the relationship between humans and nature, and showcases an ideal world of overgrown lushness in his paintings. In this world, the homeostatic relationship between humans and earth is reborn.
Mangovo’s works have been exhibited at Expo Milan (Italy), Hangar – Centro de investigaçao artistica (Lisbon), and he has also participated in international fairs such as 1-54 Paris (January 2021). In 2014 he was awarded the Mirella Antognoli Prize by the Italian Embassy and Alliance Française. He won the ENSA Arte prize in 2018 for best visual artist of Angola. The artist has participated in more than 50 exhibitions and performances in Angola, Portugal, France, Italy, South Africa, Zimbabwe, D.R. Congo, Belgium, Luxembourg and the US.
