Interview with Oluwole Omofemi

23/03/20
Interview: Oluwole Omofemi


Oluwole Omofemi: The Way We Were
Signature African Art, London

12 March – 16 April 2020

Oluwole Omofemi (b1988, Ibadan, Nigeria) always wanted to be an artist, despite opposition from his family. As a child, he learned about the civil rights movement and the natural hair movement of the late 60s and early 70s from his grandfather, who, at the time, sported an afro. Omofemi now uses hair in his paintings as a metaphor for freedom and power, and as a symbol of identity. Some of his series use the more muted palette of the old masters, showing how entrenched identity and culture are in a person’s belief system; others use a brighter, pop art palette, portraying energy and strength and looking to the future. Whatever the style, he considers his work to be African at heart.

One work in particular stands out from the others on display – In Her (2019), depicting a bald woman set against a bright, almost street art-style background, covered in words such as hope, love, aspiration and queen. This piece is dedicated to Omofemi’s grandmother, who died of cancer, as well as to raising awareness of the disease, and showing that a cancer diagnosis is not necessarily the end of everything: there is always hope. Other works are dedicated to his mother, through the use of floral patterns. In general, Omofemi sees women as close to God, in their ability to love, accept and forgive. This is why the majority of his subjects – and all of those in this exhibition – are female.

I spoke to Omofemi just before the opening of his first exhibition in London, at Signature African Art’s new Mayfair venue.

Watch the interview here

Interview: Pamela Schilderman

27/11/17

Interview with Pamela Schilderman

Casket

Maidstone Museum

17 October - 16 December 2017

Born in Holland to a Dutch father and Brazilian mother, Pamela Schilderman (b1982) spent her early years in Rwanda before moving to Rugby in the Midlands when she was five. Questions of identity and language thus played a key role in her formative years and it is unsurprising that they now permeate her artistic practice. Her current project, Casket (2017), comprises a Victorian-style wrought iron and glass jewellery box (bespoke, as, indeed, is everything in this work), containing the artist’s thumbprint, DNA profile and hair follicles, a drawing of a photograph of her retina, and a copper cast of her teeth. Each item has been painstakingly handmade and carries with it symbolism on numerous levels. Created as a self-portrait, the work has been shown anonymously in most of its venues: Schilderman hopes this will raise questions about identity and portraiture and what it is that defines each of them.

Read the interview here

Review of Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask at the National Portrait Gallery

13/03/17

Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask

National Portrait Gallery

9 March - 29 May 2017

Exploring gender, identity and the shifting notion of self in one’s artwork, especially through photography and the “selfie”, might be de rigueur at the moment, but a century ago, when the French artist and writer Claude Cahun (née Lucy Renée Mathilde Schwob, 1894-1954) began to do so, she was alone in the field. Although only one of her photographs was shown during her lifetime, Cahun began experimenting with photography and self-portraiture as early as 1912, working together with her partner (and later step-sister), Suzanne Malherbe (who also changed her name to the equally androgynous Marcel Moore). Fashioning masks and costumes to masquerade as women, men, and everything in between – Cahun herself wrote: “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that suits me” – she explored the construction of identity, decades before Judith Butler’s theorising on its performativity in Gender Trouble (1990). After time spent in Paris amidst the Surrealist movement – André Breton described Cahun as “one of the most curious spirits of our time” – Cahun and Moore settled on Jersey in 1937, where they went on to launch a resistance movement against the Nazis, before being imprisoned and sentenced to death in 1944 for counter propaganda tracts. Both attempted suicide but were taken to hospital and survived. They were released in 1945, on the eve of liberation. Much of Cahun's work had been destroyed by the Nazis, but she continued to experiment with photography until her death at the age of 60.

Read the rest of this review here

We Were There: Emerald Winter Pride Art Awards

23/05/16
We Were There: Emerald Winter Pride Art Awards

Published in the June 2016 issue of DIVA magazine

Essay: Gareth Phillips. Search for 'Hiraeth'

02/12/14

An Essay on the work of Gareth Phillips

Gareth Phillips: Search for 'Hiraeth'

Gareth Phillips (b.1979) may not be a native Welsh speaker, but his identity as a dyn cymraeg (Welshman) could not be stronger, and, having grown up in the seaside town of Penarth, the Welsh coast forms an integral part of his life. A graduate of the University of Wales, Newport, where he studied Documentary Photography, Phillips now works as a freelance photographer, regularly commissioned by a number of newspapers and magazines. Nevertheless, he considers his photographic approach to embrace both the documentary and the artistic and he prefers not to be boxed in by any particular label. ‘Having the freedom to produce without limitations is what excites me as a photographer,’ he says.

From 2012-13, Phillips was working on a project called Y Tir Newydd (The New Land), ‘an artistic translation of the furthest points of the Welsh Landscape’. This flowed seamlessly into his current project, Hiraeth, conceived and produced for Ffotogallery’s 2014 summer showcase, Wish You Were Here, a triennial series of exhibitions and events seeking to nurture and support the work of early career, Wales-based photographic artists.

To read the rest of this essay, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2014/11/gareth-phillips/ 

Interview with Glenn Ligon

18/10/14

Glenn Ligon: Call and Response

Camden Arts Centre

10 October 2014 – 11 January 2015

Glenn Ligon (b1960) is famed for his thought-provoking works which combine text, silkscreen painting, neon and video and explore themes of identity, racism, sexuality and civil rights.

His first solo exhibition in the UK, now on show at the Camden Arts Centre, presents new works based on the plight of the Harlem Six and using footage of the comedian Richard Pryor.

A new series of enormous black and white silkscreen paintings are based on composer Steve Reich’s taped-speech work, using the recorded voice of Daniel Hamm, one of the Harlem Six, describing how he had to puncture one of his bruises to prove to the police he had been beaten. Layered up so as to obscure the text, creating a rhythm that recalls Reich’s musical piece, the works dominate the large gallery at the Camden Arts Centre.

A new neon piece takes from the same source material and demonstrates Ligon’s technique of creating ‘black’ neon.

Finally, a seven-screen video installation uses footage from the comedian Richard Pryor’s stand up show, Live on the Sunset Strip, from 1982. Removing the sound, Ligon forces viewers to observe Pryor’s lively and exaggerated body language, exploring an alternative means of communication and self-expression.

Ligon spoke to Studio International before the opening of his exhibition.

To watch the interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/glenn-ligon-interview-call-and-response-camden