Here, the character Maria—depicted as three figures clustered in the center of the picture—stands as a metaphor for life in post-colonial Mozambique. She displays a range of emotion, from contentedness to disgust to despair. For the artist, Maria’s register of emotions describes the aftermath of colonialism in Africa. This painting is grounded in 20th-century Maputo,the capital of Mozambique, and in Mozambican contemporary art. Rua Araujo is the name of the city’s red-light district, and the painting draws from the work of Mozambican photographer Ricardo Rangel, whose series "Our nightly bread" explored sex work and the nightlife in the city from 1970 to 1990.