The Palette of ore pigments
In her early paintings, such as Cerveau 2, she began utilizing pigments derived directly from ground ore—including malachite, copper, cobalt, and coltan. Rather than treating paint as passive color, she approaches these minerals as living archives that carry the structural memory of the earth. This methodology resonates deeply with ancient artistic traditions, such as the Egyptian use of malachite, positioning her technique within a millennia-old lineage of mineral-based creation that far predates modern industrial classification.
During her residency at the Africa Center in London in 2025, Ngamba significantly expanded this mineral palette to include heterogenite, aragonite, cobalt-bearing calcite, and pink cobalt salt. By developing new binding techniques, she unlocked a vast spectrum of physical behaviors, shifting seamlessly from delicate, translucent washes to dense, heavily textured surfaces that let the raw weight of the minerals speak for themselves.
It is through this intense focus on the raw essence of the medium that Ngamba’s approach offers a subtle critique of functionalist modernism. Where the industrial tradition often stripped materials down to standardized, functional vectors—treating paint or metal as a blank slate for human utility—Ngamba reinstates the mineral as an active participant. Her pigments are not mere colors applied to a surface; they are the palpable weight of the landscape itself.
By refusing to flatten these materials into pure, anonymous utility, her canvas exposes a profound contemporary paradox. The minerals that make our digital world physically possible—the cobalt and coltan at the heart of every microchip and computing circuit—are primarily extracted from the soil of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ore travels across continents to fuel global technology, yet a profound asymmetry remains: while the raw physical material migrates to the centers of technological production, the resulting digital and economic power does not make the return journey. In Ngamba’s hands, the paint itself becomes a medium for this global dialogue, confronting the viewer with the raw, elemental matter that underpins our ephemeral digital reality.
Text by Ralph Dum.
Photography by Deniz Guzel.
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