Shamiso Mapanda
She/Her
Positioning geometric forms as something simultaneously structured, unstable, and communicative, activated through both mechanical systems and viewer perception.
She/Her
The installation features a central slotted shape sculpture standing about four feet tall, alongside a triptych of wall-based motorised sculptural reliefs. Questions around balance, movement, and how the shapes physically connect all shape the final pieces, allowing them to sit somewhere between sculpture and mechanism. The viewer is invited to walk around the central sculpture to experience the composition from different perspectives whilst anticipating the wall pieces come to life!
The works begin through a loose and playful process of screen-printing, before being refined digitally and built into wooden constructions.
New geometric compositions are produced through screen-printing. The position of the printing paper is manipulated in order to achieve this using stencils…
The shapes are then carefully cut out, painted, and arranged according to the 2D, screen-printed version. Slight alterations are made to make sure shapes are connected securely to each other.
The static sculpture translates the same geometric forms used in the relief works into freestanding, slotted structures. As the viewer moves around the work, corners and edges appear to meet, separate, and re-align, producing shifting relationships between intersecting elements; “oscillates between two and three dimensional space”(Cohan, 2026). From different viewpoints, the composition alternates between balance and instability, as irregular forms disrupt its structural order. Each element is assigned a distinct colour, the same colour does not meet, reinforcing their separation. As a result, movement is displaced from the object onto the viewer, who completes the structure through their physical navigation of space.
Alexander Calder describes the distinction between the “mobile” and the “stabile” as the difference between actual and implied movement (Kuh, 1962, pp. 41–42). This relationship connects closely to my practice, where the motorised components introduce real movement and disruption, while static sculptures rely on the viewer’s physical movement and perception to activate them spatially.
You are invited to view more of my work on my website.
If you have any questions or queries concerning me or the artwork please contact me via the details listed at the top of this site. Thank you for visiting.