Black Womenfolk - The Weganda Review

Perhaps the first thing to be said about Manzi Leon is how young he is. Still only twenty-three, he lives with his parents in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, where he is also trying to earn a college degree in information technology. He has, despite his lack of formal art training and in spite of the early disapproval of his parents, persisted in making paintings of such quality that there is no question now of what he will do with his life. He will make art and – on the authority of what he has produced in four years as a professional artist – he is marked for greatness.

Manzi’s paintings evoke the grace, beauty and authenticity of Black women in a style that’s strikingly uncommon. There are artists in the region who make images of African women that are interesting in many ways. Manzi’s work is unique because, in the first place, we know that he taught himself how to hold a brush but also because the paintings he creates lead into the interior lives of women. In a way, therefore, intimacy is a vital quality of these works. A painting like Contemplations of Domesticity, an acrylic on canvas made in 2023, is somehow, impossibly, able to open a small window into the soul of the sitter – a beautiful woman who, in a carefree moment, has let her frock fall to reveal her strong legs. But one wonders if she is having a headache, because her right hand is at the temple in the posture many of us will be familiar with. And the shawl, the yellow shawl that creates a sort of halo around the woman’s head, gives her the dignity we already assumed she had. Thanks to Manzi’s masterful decision-making, the painting achieves a richness that must delight the days of its private collector.

In addition to Contemplations of Domesticity, TWR is publishing the images of 11 other works that Manzi made between 2022 and 2023. Some have been exhibited by Mitochondria Gallery, a space in Houston, Texas, that focuses on “showcasing some of the brightest” young artists from Africa and the African diaspora. One of those works, Blue, an acrylic on canvas that Manzi painted in 2022, has been selected as cover art for this issue of TWR. This is an astonishing painting, and Manzi shows his skills as a conceptual artist in pursuit of distinct expressions in and by African women. The woman’s blue jacket is amazing, of course, but it is not, for us, the unforgettable thing about the painting: the neck rising out of the blue jacket to support the bald head seems elongated, giving the woman a surreal bearing, as if she were some alien woman from outer space about to plunge into Earth. But we know, because Manzi was working from a reference, that this is the painting of a woman in Rwanda. She is strong and she is attractive, and the slight indent in her scalp above the temple adds a layer of mystery. Manzi told TWR that many of the women he paints are known to him and that some are his friends, allowing him the freedom to experiment with ideas affirming those qualities in Black womenfolk that he holds to be true: grace, beauty, fortitude, strength, in addition to pain and distress. “I am always trying to let the viewers find themselves in the painting in the exact moment the figure in the painting was in,” Manzi said. “I can be a voice for them.”

In September Mitochondria Gallery gave Manzi his first solo exhibition. The show, which runs until Oct. 26, presents a new body of work describing Black women through the recurring figure of Gracilla, a Ghanaian woman he once met in the city of Accra and whose portrait is featured in this portfolio. “Each piece is a tribute to the idea that every woman embodies the spirit of Gracilla – an exceptional woman who radiates love and beauty from within,” Eric Agyare, the show’s curator, said in his statement.

Manzi has since 2021 been a member of KomezArt, a collective of Rwandan artists. KomezArt says of Manzi that he is emerging as an “iconic” artist in Africa, and we concur. His paintings are held in private collections abroad; the esteemed Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo has acquired at least four of Manzi’s paintings. Manzi, who works mostly with acrylic paint, said that he is happy to have finally won the approval of his parents, who, after their early concern, can see clearly what their son can do. He will get his college degree, if mostly to please papa and maman, but he is not turning back. “There is no doubt. I know for sure that my career is in art,” he said. ▪