Project Room presents RESCUE(D)

RESCUE(D) is the first solo exhibition of recent College of the Arts gradate Mateus Alfeus.

In this exhibition he will show how he transforms a heap of scrap into beautiful sculptures. He manages to breathe life into these rusted pieces of forgotten metal.

Alfeus said: “Living in a world without challenges or difficulties is a surreal dream. Everybody needs to free themselves from whatever bonds he or she might find themselves in physically, emotionally, financially and even spiritually.”

He added his RESCUE(D) theme is about drawing people to the idea of helping and carrying burdens together as one nation for a better future for everyone.

The exhibition ends on Saturday, 13 April.

As a child, Alfeus entertained himself by sculpting objects out of clay, mud, wire wood, natural and scrap materials he found around his home in Ondobe, a settlement in northernmost Namibia, near the border to Angola.

Back then, clay was his favourite substance, because it was easy to come by, especially during the rainy season, and its malleability made it the ideal medium for experimenting in a creative manner.

Upon finishing school, Alfeus started off by doing carpentry and other odd jobs around his area, but as he says: “It has always been hard to find work.” In 2009, he was given a lucky break and invited to attend a workshop in Windhoek that had nothing to do with art, but was rather focused on public speaking and community engagement and development.

During the course, he was introduced to the facilities at the College of the Arts, an institution where he felt right at home, and that immediately reawakened his inborn passion for the arts.

But it would be a timely process before Alfeus would be in a position to live his dreams. He continued working odd jobs until he saved up enough to take on the economic challenges of urban life, and he could finally enrol for a diploma in visual arts at the College of the Arts in 2015.

“I started exploring my surroundings for materials to work with and realised that scrap metal is found in abundance, especially on dumpsites and scrapyards.”

Although he still liked playing with clay, it turned out to be a scarce resource in the city and in the end it was a simple decision.

“I focused my creative efforts on the materials that were available to me in my immediate environment and so it came that I majored in metal sculpting.”

An imaginative array of barking dogs, birds in flight and pipe-smoking human faces started making their appearance from carefully arranged pieces of metal, welded together as if to capture his ideas in eternity.

Despite being motivated and driven by his artistic side, like other artists, Alfeus faces challenges.

“The focus on art has gone beyond borders. Local artists don't sell or make enough money out of their work and as a result can't afford to work as full-time artists and have to find other jobs to survive. My dream is to make art recognised as a career in our society and to keep it alive in the fading Namibian art industry - this is my vision not only for self, but also for the arts sector in general.”



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