The Silence that Screams: Visual Art as a Language of Repressed Emotions

Edna Tuaira Anibal "

There are silences that scream louder than words. There are colors that whisper wounds, lines that tremble with anguish, and shapes that shed invisible tears. Visual art, in this context, is not just an aesthetic expression. It is language. It is a cry. It is a communication embedded in the body and soul of those who create and those who contemplate. As a student of communication, a poet in training, and a woman in a permanent state of observation, I vehemently affirm: visual art is one of the purest forms of communicating that which we dare not say out loud. In the heart of Maputo’s galleries, alleys and street markets, emerges the work of Fiel dos Santos, a Mozambican artist whose raw material is recycled pain. Using rusty metal, pieces of burnt-out vehicles, remains of war weapons and abandoned objects, Fiel not only builds human and animal figures: he reconstructs memories, collective traumas and deep-rooted concerns. His silent sculptures speak of violence, abandonment, and Mozambican identity marked by war, inequality and fragile hope. The Fisherman of Dreams, one of his most moving pieces, shows a man made of scrap metal, rowing against an invisible sea. And we row with him, every day. On the other side of the continent, on South African soil, lives and works William Kentridge, one of the most fascinating names in contemporary African art. In monochromatic drawings, charcoal animations and hand-composed videos, Kentridge transforms visual language into a mirror of the emotional history of Southern Africa. Denouncing apartheid, colonial memory, repression and trauma, his work does not need subtitles. It can be seen and felt. Felix in Exile, for example, is a film that blends dream and despair in a single breath. Each moving shadow, each distorted figure is an unanswered question. How to communicate pain? How to translate trauma? Kentridge does not answer: he shows. Both artists mentioned are vivid proof that visual art has the power to make the invisible visible. And, as Susan Sontag, an author whose vision represents me and underpins this opinion, states, “the artist must neither console nor lull: he must disturb”. Sontag sees art as a force of rupture, of sensitive provocation, of communication that scratches. I agree. Art must not only be beautiful. It must be honest. And emotional honesty is rarely clean or polished: it is dirty, raw, authentic. So is good communication: the kind that does not hide behind political correctness. As I delve into the work of these African artists, I understand that communication is not limited to vocabulary, slogans, or campaigns. There is a type of communication that lives in the colors, textures, and glaring silences of works of art. As a communicator, I see this as a responsibility: to read images, interpret silences, listen to colors, and give voice to other people’s emotions through visual empathy. Visual art is not a gallery luxury. It is an existential urgency. It is one of the last places where one can still speak without censorship, where the body and feelings find space to exist without justification. By drawing, sculpting, painting or gluing, the artist communicates pains that have no language. Art is, therefore, the voice of those who do not scream. And it is precisely this scream that I wish to amplify with my writing, with my communication practice and with my presence as a Mozambican woman and future professional of the word. Because yes, there are emotions that cannot be expressed. They are felt. And visual art, more than any other medium, is the place where they take shape and become comprehensible to the eyes of those who dare to look.

2025/12/3