Eviction: Mother and Child 1992

George Pemba’s painting, Eviction: Mother and Child, presents a narrative with direct mark making and expressive colour. The immediacy of Pemba’s brushwork speaks to the urgency of his subject matter. You can see a kind of gentle blending around the figures, yet elsewhere the paint is applied with a degree of roughness, creating an interesting tension between the smooth and the textured. The ochre, lavender and pale peach sky feels ominous, a visual representation of the mother’s uncertain future. Look at the way he articulates the folds in her skirt, where the dark paint clumps together, almost like little sculptural forms. This adds a tactile quality, drawing attention to the physical presence of the woman. And notice how he scumbles the ground with greens, greys and browns, bringing an unsettled, almost agitated quality to the landscape. Pemba’s work reminds me a little of Van Gogh in its emotional intensity, but Pemba is very much his own man. Ultimately, this is a painting that invites us to reflect on issues of displacement, resilience, and the human spirit.