Biography
For the 9th Sharjah Biennial Yonamine created a major site-specific installation titled Katchokwe Style (2009) where sand bags, loose soil and building materials are used to construct a space that alludes to war trenches, colonialism and the fraught history of Africa. He is part of a generation of young African artists whose work has helped recover and restore a past that has been lost.
Yonamine has exhibited widely since 2004 particularly in association with the Cultural Movement from which the 1st Luanda Triennial developed in 2006. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions including SOSO arte contemporânea Africana, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2010), ZonaMaco, Project Room, México City (2010), Necessitat de veure, Display Lab, Tarragona, Spain (2008).
He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Pavilhão Branco do Museu da Cidade, Lisbon, Portugal (2010), the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Brazil (2010), the Museu de História Natural, Luanda, Angola (2009), the Grand Theatre Bordeaux, France (2009), as well as the Havana Biennale, Cuba (2009), the Bienal de São Tomé, São Tomé e Príncipe (2008), the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal(2008) and the African Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2007). In 2008 he was resident at PARQ Magazine in Lisbon and at Museu Nacional de Arte, Maputo, Mozambique and in 2007 at the Galeria ze dos Bois (ZDB), Lisbon.
Born in Luanda, Angola, in 1975 Yonamine has also lived in Zaire (now DRC), Brazil and the UK and currently lives and works between Luanda and Lisbon, Portugal.
October 2010
Quote from Isabel Carlos, text for online exhibition Double L, Artafrica website, 2008
This person was part of Sharjah Biennial 9