Joy Yamusangie
Blue Glass Fortunes
2021
HOME, Manchester
Curator | Exhibition
Images by Lee Baxter
Drawn from a palette of dreams, memories and hopes, Blue Glass Fortunes was inspired by a vision of blue goblets with candles set inside, flooding a room with light. The meaning remains unknown, revealed with future hindsight. Adrift in an ultramarine ocean of love and loss, we float, suspended – no longer asleep, but not yet awake.
Joy Yamusangie is a visual artist, currently working in London. Specialising in illustration, Joy experiments with a range of traditional processes such as drawing, painting and collaging to produce mixed media pieces. Exploring socio-political themes from a personal perspective, Joy’s work takes the form of paperworks, clothing and paintings on cardboard. Their work explores themes of memory, intimacy, race and culture within the Congolese diaspora, from a personal perspective.
Yamusangie is also particularly interested in how archiving is incorporated into their practice. Inspiration is drawn from past conversations, places and moments, from Kinshasa shop fronts to fleeting interactions and conversations. By archiving routines and cultural practices through their pieces, Yamusangie’s work exists to preserve memories and stories. Each individual piece documents and retells moments, creating a physical permanence to past experiences from the artists’ life.
