Born during the late 1950s in Cuchi, Angola, Madena Kasanga grew up receiving her traditional education from her mother.

She says, ‘when I was young, I worked with my parents in our garden. All my work I do comes from them. My painting here comes from my parents’ parents. They used to draw what they saw in nature and they decorated many things, like eggs. In this painting here, these are wooden sculptures of old peoples heads, carved from wood. I just painted them from memory.’

She attended formal school in Cuchi for two years. As an adult she fled the war in the late 1970s and found employment with the South African Defence Force as a baker at Omega.

She has four children.