Therapy Lounge was first shown on Masamvu’s solo exhibition Hata at Goodman Gallery in 2019. In this work the same red figure, which exists in Pink Gorillas in Hell are Gods, emerges from the landscape but this time it is enveloped within a mass of black paint, its arms appearing on either side of it. As with Pink Gorillas…Masamvu has portrayed the weight and sturdiness of the figure – and we are given impression that the painter has caught the figure just before it throws off the shackles of the heavy black mass and emerges from below the surface.

For Masamvu this red figure symbolizes a shedding of the surface, that part of ourselves that is so influenced and moulded by societal conventions and what he refers to as the “forced ideology of governance”. In shedding the surface we are able to return to our true selves, to the rhythm of the natural earth and the blood which courses through our bodies. Speaking about the return to nature, which is so important within the symbolism of the paintings, the artist states: "I am aware of the communion of the body, the soil and spirit and am interested in the transfiguration and memoirs of body and soul that evoke a real sense of vulnerability."

In Cat’s Cradle a distorted figure is covered by skulls and ghostly creatures. Its hands are twisted out of shape and appear too large for its body. White threads connect and ensnare the figure’s hands which can be read as a metaphor for labour, for that part of the body which writes, creates and works, creating links between the self and the world. The title of the painting suggests that the figure is involved in a game of Cat’s Cradle, where two hands appear to be constrained by string but are in fact easily released within a few swift movements. For Masamvu these hands represent a way of being in the world where we can undo ourselves from the systems that oppress the true self, so that the ghosts and skulls which emerge from the landscape come to symbolize a letting go of the restraints of institutionalization ­and a return to nature.