Press Release
WILD JOY
Januaryn10 ? February 16, 2019
Skoto Gallery isnpleased to present Wild Joy, a groupnshow of paintings, drawings, sculpture and photography by a selection ofnartists affiliated with the gallery. The opening reception is Thursday, January 10, 6-8pm.
This exhibition brings together the works of sixteen artistsnincluding Jelili Atiku, OlunAmoda, Osi Audu, Gopal Dagnogo, Sokey Edorh, Mor Faye, Romain Ganer, KhalidnKodi, Wosene Kosrof, Aime Mpane, Afi Nayo, Chriss Aghana Nwobu, Pefura, ZerihunnSeyoum, Jimi Solanke and Juliana Zevallos.
Despite their varied experiences, personal cultural backgroundsnand styles their approach to making art is through a contemporary experience,ntheir metaphysics is distinctly new and refreshing, celebrating the moment ofnapprehension and the fugitive moment of response in their search for creativenexcellence. The works included in this show are phenomenal in their own right,nembodying individual creative distinctions as well as group configurations. Besides the visual power and the politico-historicalnsignificance imbued in the works, the show is also a meditation on the flow ofnaesthetic influence – and the larger claims of Modernism to subsume or completenthe ambitions of all other art stories.
There is anlyrical beauty in the recent mixed media drawings by the Nigerian multimedianartist Jelli Atiku (b. 1968, Lagos, Nigeria) that belies its surprisingnseamlessness between the spiritual and physical worlds. He draws from bothnfiguration and abstraction, combined his with a wide spectrum of culturalnreferences as well as his long standing political concerns for human rights andnjustice to expand the medium?s definition in relation to gesture and form.nThere is a sense of value for spontaneity and improvisation that engages thenviewer directly and viscerally as ideas are distilled into swirling ornmeandering lines in his work. A pioneer of contemporary performance art innNigeria, he has participated in numerous performance/exhibitions/talks in Lagosn(Nigeria), 2017 Venice Biennale and 2018 Manifesta 12 in Palermo, Italy amongnothers. He recently completed a year-long residency/faculty at BrownnUniversity. Providence, RI
Also included is a selection of mixed media portraits on woodnpanel by Aime Mpane (b. 1968, Kinshasa, DR Congo) that poignantly chroniclencontemporary historical upheavals in post-colonial Africa, including the presentnturmoil in his homeland over the control of natural resources. He utilizes thenextreme gesture and emotionality of his medium by slashing, chipping andnchopping with the adze ? a traditional wood carving tool – onnwood panel, illuminating the various faces of war in their raw, awkward andnblunt forms evocative of the diverse states of the human condition from thenpolitical to the metaphysical – a fit metaphor for the violence and direnconditions that have befallen the country throughout most of its modernnhistory. Mpane recently completed a sculpture commissionntitled New Breath – a giantnlatticework head sculpted from wood and placed over a crown etched on the floornof the rotunda of the newly renovated Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren,nBelgium. He is also included in the exhibition Posing Modernity: The BlacknModel from Manet and Matisse to Today at Columbia University?s Wallach Gallery,nNew York which will be expanded and travel to Mus?e d’Orsay from March 26 to July 14, 2019.
WosenenWorke Kosrof (b. 1950, Addis Ababa,nEthiopia) continues to draw upon an individual reserve of personal andncollective memories to activate a meaningful form of engagement that celebratesnthe richness of Ethiopia?s visual culture. For years, he has consistentlynexplored strategies that combine the dynamic interplay between text and imagenwith the abstract dimensions of the Amharic script, a modern language ofnEthiopia and one of the oldest indigenous to Africa. He fuses a vocabulary ofnsigns and symbols drawn from reconfigured Amharic script with a mastery of thennuances of color and composition as well as an open-ended improvisationalnsensibility to create work that comes alive to convey temporal and spatialndimensions of the written word. He is a widely exhibited artist whose work isnin several public and private collections.
Afi Nayo’s (b. 1969, Lome, Togo) work is intensely personal and displaysna blend of fragility, modesty and refinement. She uses the pyrogravure and mixednmedia technique on wood panel to create pictures that consist of fantasticndream images, wit and imagination as well as overtones of fantasy and satire.nThey are dense with sensual surfaces, formal rigors and color harmonies thatndemonstrate a playful openness to art historical influences whilensimultaneously encouraging multiple layers of meanings. She uses a complexnlanguage of symbols and signs drawn from the unconscious to obtain a poeticnamalgam of abstraction and reality. Shenpresently divides her time between Paris, France and Lome, Togo.
MornFaye (Dakar Senegal, 1947-1984) was a versatile and complex artist whosenability to express a vivid interior existence while simultaneously opening upnto some of the larger issues of our time was reflected consistently throughoutnhis career. As an artist, Mor Faye absorbed and engaged the outside world,ndrawing from a multitude of sources yet claiming allegiance to none. Rathernthan the inward-focused images of a solitary recluse, Faye?s art connectsnpersonal experience to the larger world, revealing a multi-layered reality. Hisnworks are rich in meanings and metaphors as they transform observed reality andnyet, remain uninterested in creating a mere description of this reality, givingnpriority instead to the representation of the ideal. Since his death in 1984 atnthe age of 37, Mor Faye?s reputation as a troubled artistic genius has reachednmythic proportions. A prolific artist, he lived a short and very productivenlife, and left behind a rich body of work that will help liberate as well asnenrich contemporary thinking in Africa.
JuliananZevallos?s (born in Los Organos, Piura region of Peru, South America) recentnwork is inspired by nature and drawn from personal experience, combiningnmovement in form and content in which lines sculpted in space are invested withnthe attributes of the employed materials. She explores notions of perception,nmemory, transience and the ephemeral nature of existence in her work. There isna sense of persistent experimentation and search for aesthetic tranquility thatnseeks to balance spatial and structural concerns with a sensibility that speaknof an inner life that is sometimes fraught with anxiety. She is aware of thencreative process as a restless engagement with fleeting properties and strivesnto convey to the viewer the mental and physical engagement of the artist withnher work. She presently divides her time between Lima, Peru and Paris,nFrance.
Born 1942, JiminSolanke is a Nigerian film actor, dramatist, folk singer, poet, playwright andnprolific artist. His small-sized collages are rich in materials, colors andntextures. A master story ?teller, he draws from his rich Yoruba culturalnheritage and present-day realities in contemporary African society to createnworks that are seemingly simple, serene and as matured as thought
RomainnGaner (b. Guadaloupe, Caribbean) experiments with a wide range of media andnmaterials to address contemporary concerns. His roles shift and conspirenbetween artist and activist, through a distinct voice that is somewhere withinnthe spectrum of ?learned humor? and engages with the politics of a nation in flux.nHis work approaches a perspective universal enough to include all of us. Henlives and works in Paris, France.
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