Nú Barreto is a multidisciplinary artist whose political practice depicts his own experience of contemporary Africa and the violence and inequality that marks the continent. Barreto has developed his own symbolic system of color and recurring motifs. His canvas paintings are populated by silhouetted anonymous figures flailing against abstracted compositions surrounded by broken ladders to nowhere and signifiers of urban life. Thin wavering “lifelines” dissect his compositions, representing an existence that is precarious yet persistent.
Born in 1966 in São Domingos, Guinea-Bissau, Barreto has been living and working in Paris since 1989, graduating from the École Nationale des Métiers de l'Image des Gobelins (Paris, France). In 1998, he represented his country at the Lisbon World Fair (Portugal). His work has since then received international exposure, and Barreto has established himself as one of the most prominent artists of African contemporary art.
