Wyssolela Moreira, born in Luanda, lives and works between Toronto, Canada and Luanda, Angola as a multidisciplinary artist, art director, and energy worker.
Her artistic and experimental practice uses digital collage, writing, photography, installation, video art, and performance to explore the complexities of a Self influenced by neo-colonial normativity. She works on the intersection of art and spirituality, and centers the decolonization and deconstruction of colonial inheritance pertaining the body, identity, space, belief, health/wellness. She uses her work to create opportunities for thought, to hold space for marginalized experiences, challenge existing narratives about what it means to be African/Black, and highlight the realities of discrimination, gender inequality, and African human rights.
Wyssolela has had the opportunity to exhibit her work internationally in collective exhibitions, video and film festivals, artist residencies, cultural events, and publications.
Her solo exhibition “Prosopagnosia, Elinga Teatro, Luanda, Angola, 2019” using collage as a medium addressed the complexity of Angolan identity and the effects of colonization on contemporary beauty standards while it encouraged the audience to think about their ethnic ancestry. Her most recent art contributions were present in: "Casa Muviment Vent Curação, Catchupa Factory, Mindelo, Cape Verde, 2022" an artist residency dedicated to emerging photographers and artists from the portuguese-speaking African countries (Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique); “Kimba Sec - Modernidade Fantasma, Jahmek Contemporary Art Gallery, Luanda, Angola, 2022” a group exhibition about the Kimba Sec building better known as Treme-Treme in Luanda, in which the collective of artists developed a set of works that were born from the process of immersion in the building as an archaeological site; "Unlayered, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick, Scotland, 2022” a work of video art that discovers and articulates the plural and shapeshifting ways in which being and place interconnect; “Pathways to Ancestral Knowledge, MakeRoom Inc, Toronto, Canada, 2022” a group exhibition that looks at loss and remembrance through a Black lens where artists were encouraged to create art that both informs and is inspired by the cultural practices of remembering our ancestors.
Access to Portfolio and CV upon request
"A arte que crio é de inspiração Divina. O meu trabalho é uma linguagem codificada de tudo aquilo que se ressoa comigo. Eu me considero muita coisa em união com uma só.. Tento apenas encontrar o melhor medium para expressar qual seja a frequência criativa que tenho. Os temas variam, e as complexidades experimentais é que me levam a explorar o que é ser, e o que foi e será...
Eu me vejo no mundo, me vejo na experiência alheia.. foi assim que me vi em <os transparentes>, foi assim que criei <os últimos patos>
Mas na realidade nada criei, tudo já é tudo ja foi encontrado. De nenhum partido fazemos parte, à festa chegamos sempre tarde. Queremos só um pouco de diamante... as luzes internas levam tempo até deixarem de ser opacas.. E é disso que o meu trabalho nasce, de tudo, de ser."
"The art I create is from Divine inspiration. My work is a codified language of everything that resonates with me. I consider myself to be a lot of things in unison with one.. I just try to find the best medium to express whatever creative frequency I feel. The themes vary, and the experimental complexities are what take me to explore what it is to be, what it was and what it will...
I see myself in the world, I see myself in people's experience... that's how I saw myself in <the invisibles>, that's how I created <late to the party>
But in reality, I created nothing, everything already is, everything was already found. We're not part of a party, and to parties we always arrive late. We just want a little bit of diamond... the internal lights take time until they stop being dull.. And this is where my work births from, from everything, from being."