Reinata Sadimba

From Makonde pottery to a language of her own

Reinata Sadimba was born in 1945 on the Mueda plateau, in the Makonde north of Mozambique. She began in the pottery that Makonde tradition reserves for women and transformed it into a language entirely her own — vessels that grow sculptural decorations, figures between the human, the spirit and the animal, modelled with her hands, a small knife and a corn cob, in clay mixed with limestone and graphite. In the 1980s she worked with the Swiss artist Maya Zürcher and with the sculptors of the Nandimba cooperative; in the mid-1980s she emigrated to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she held her first solo exhibition (Nyumba ya Sanaa Gallery, 1990), returning to Maputo in 1992.

In 1995 she was one of the four artists selected to represent Mozambique at the 1st Johannesburg Biennale and in the Africa'95 season — alongside Malangatana, Alberto Chissano and Titos Mabota. Her works have been part of the permanent exhibition of the National Art Museum in Maputo since 1989, and are held in collections including the United Nations Headquarters (New York), Culturgest — Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Lisbon), the Museu Nacional de Etnologia (Lisbon) and the Collection de l'Art Brut (Lausanne). She exhibited at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (The Power of My Hands, 2021) and features in Phaidon's African Artists from 1882 to Now and in Angaza Afrika: African Art Now by Chris Spring, curator of the African galleries of the British Museum.

In 2022 she was made Commander of the Order of Prince Henry by the President of the Portuguese Republic. Recent exhibitions include Quem Somos (Fundação Fernando Leite Couto, Maputo, 2023), Moçambi-Cá (UCCLA, Lisbon, 2023), Dedos do Barro e da Tinta (CCFM, Maputo, 2025), the Maia Biennial of Contemporary Art (2025) and Mascherada (Milan, 2025–26). Considered one of the most important African artists of her generation, she lives and works in Maputo, in her studio at the Natural History Museum.