About:

• Mpenja is the collaboration between two professional painters born in different countries working together on the same canvas. Frances Schandera Duarte (German) and Everett Duarte (South African) are an artist duo, based in both South Africa and Germany. Everett and Frances began working on Mpenja in an old garage in 2007, on the East Coast of South Africa. The art work the two artists create is inspired by Africa. Travelling and painting together allows the artist couple to comment from two perspectives on the same subject. Jointly observing the African environment and the African people, with its full glory of beauty, colour and texture, they feed their inspiration. The paintings are a mixture of abstract shapes and realistic details, allowing discovery on the viewer´s behalf. Expressing a harnessed impression of the environment the two artists deliver an atmosphere of unchanged life. Their visual dialogue is achieved by using paint, exposed images and brush marks as reactions, and counter reactions to each other. This process envelopes many layers of depth and transparency to the work.