Casa de Angola - Nueva exposición en Lisboa  abre el 6 de marzo de 2025 con Catarina Diaz y Daniela Águila.

Google Map - Casa de Angola

"Ausencia d’Africa" By Andrea Pastore

There was a time in art history during the 18th century in France when a constant threat of Paradise Lost fueled a period called Rococo; artists started to depict idealized outdoor settings, such as Antoine Watteau's embarkation for Cythera. In this space of Casa de Angola, two artists, Catarina Dias and Daniela Aguila, proclaim the paradise lost of many generations of African descent who bear and transmit this painful feeling of losing their individual and collective paradises.

The artwork of these two artists establishes a dialogue between three continents, Africa, Europe and Latin America; moreover, their works of art act as a bridge for two different centuries, the 18th century and the 21st century. The 18th century was a century when, for the first time, art was allowed to exist with the freedom to express itself without serving any moral doctrine; during the 18th century, art could embrace universal feelings such as love, loss, and hope with a whimsical vocabulary. Both artists come here in this space of Angola to bring a renovated energy to the vocabulary of that revolutionary century and to one of the greatest painters of the 18th century, Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Rococo focus on sensuality and leisure themes of everyday life; Catarina drinks totally from the roots of Rococo to bring elegance, grace and sophistication to her African personages. Her works of art are collages of Africa's exuberant landscapes and the timeless femininity of the 18th century. These African women, as depicted by Catarina, travel from Africa to Europe totally out of the time frame. They are the embodiment of Female beauty without answering the criteria of beauty given by geographic limits and historical tastes. They are faithful women of the 18th century, as that century did not answer any moral doctrine and considered beauty just a matter of contemplation. If Jean-Honoré Fragonard was alive, he would regret not being able to depict African women's exuberance. However, Catarina Dias took the mission to do it for these women not represented in that century.

The art of Daniela Aguila, an artist from Cuba at only 25 years old, can bring Rococo's timeless enchantment with her bright colours and strong tonal contrasts. She connects the 18th century Rococo with 21st Pop art without fear; sometimes, she uses foliage as a framing element, as did many masters of the 18th century. Fragonard themes have been picked up by 21st-century artists interested in gender, race and sexuality; Daniela gives a contemporary voice to her personages, depicting them sometimes with androgynous faces, and her art becomes the mirror of her own generation, which identifies their sensuality with no gender and no borders. Furthermore, Daniela Aguila brings empowerment to the African ladies of descent of African slaves in Cuba, and these ladies find in the pictorial space of Daniela the essence of their native African femininity that their ancestors brought from Africa in the late 18th century. Each piece of Daniela's artwork has a fragment of history. However, there are many interpretations on the same canvas.

Welcome to this 18th-century magical space of Catarina Dias and Daniela Aguila, in which African females create this romantic intrigue of Fragonard’s Rococo idealization of universal love; both artists bring their personages from personal narratives to a “voyage” of universal femininity empowerment. I wish that by capturing a fragment of this magic femininity from the bright colours of Daniela and from the contrasts of light by Catarina, we can recover our personal paradise lost; some left it in Africa and others in a non-geographical border space.

Andréa Pastore.

20th February - Lisbon 

Casa de Angola - With Catarina Diaz and Daniela Àguila, a new exhibition opens in Lisbon on 6 March 2025.