Meleko Mokgosi’s subtle yet powerful work harnesses the traditions of Western European art as a tool with which to level sharp political critiques relating to contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Combining a high degree of artistic skill with a poetic, open-ended approach, the artist shines a light on some of the most deeply entrenched socioeconomic dimensions of his home region while engaging themes related to its current postcolonial condition. Terra pericolosa III features what seems at first to be three wholly unrelated vignettes. The composition features a central image that references the past, flanked by two images that loosely bring to mind the political tensions and chronic violence with which present-day Africa is often related. Mokgosi compounds this ambiguity using formal means, setting his figures amid broad fields of blank, open space. This compositional device implies a reference to cinema, with its lapses in time separating distinct scenes. It also conjures the well-worn trope of the unfinished painting, which functions here as a signifier for an unfinished national/regional/continental history. Through this allusion, Mokgosi signals a perspective that views colonialism not as a terminal phase that has already receded into history, but as an experience of living memory—a condition in which the past, present, and future continuously intermingle.