Discontinued Healing
Teresa Kutala Firmino
About the SessionHair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection is a tightly focused, thematic auction that initiates a critical dialogue on the profound significance of hair in contemporary artistic practice. Featuring a cohort of accomplished contemporary artists, primarily those working from the African continent or within the global African diaspora, this selection of works is guided by a singular conceptual mandate: every work turns to hair as a powerful nexus, serving as medium, metaphor, or focal point of exploration.
Hair Matters illuminates the diverse interpretations and artistic vocabularies through which hair shapes identity, memory, and meaning across cultures, nations, and histories. Featuring artists such as Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou (Benin), Ifeoma U. Anyaeji (Nigeria), Sethembile Msezane (South Africa), and Hank Willis Thomas (United States), the auction examines the aesthetics, politics, and sociology of hair, with particular emphasis on African perspectives and the connective threads that link the continent and its global diasporas.
Curatorial Voices: Natasha Becker, Jared Leite, Vida Madighi-Oghu and Sihle Motsa.
About this Item
signed and dated '19; inscribed with the artist's name, the title and medium on an Everard Read label adhered to the reverse
Provenance
Everard Read, Cape Town, January 2020.
The Georgina Jaffee Hair Matters Collection.
Exhibited
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, Everard Read Booth, 14 to 16 February 2020.
Notes
Selected by Curatorial Voice: Vida Madighi-Oghu.
“The female figures pictured in the artwork reference the Mbalantu tribe who reside near the Angolan and Nambian border. Many of their traditions revolve around or are given expression through different hair styles. The girls and women of the Mbalantu prepare their hair in different styles to reflect the different stages of their lives and the status this brings. Firmino is preoccupied with revisiting historical narratives. 'History is often biased and one-sided, so to get a better understanding I reimagine my past in this so-called truth,' says the artist. Personal memories and historical events and imagery are combined and presented in interior scenes that function as possibilities and invitations to reimagine the past."
Unknown author (no date) Everard Read, Teresa Kutala Firmino - Discontinued Healing, text courtesy of Everard Read and Corrigall & Co, published in Hair Matters, online, accessed 21 November 2025.
View all Teresa Kutala Firmino lots for sale in this auction
More from Hair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection
