The New Hues of Blackness: An exhibition celebrating Black British artists
Black British History defines a space in which culture, community and self-sustainability flourish.
"Black British history defines a space in which culture, community, and self-sustainability flourish. I envision the entity that is Black British culture as an identity some in society know dearly, like a close relative, and others, a passing stranger, artistry, the craft and act of expression, is a safe space within this entity.
In analysing previous black history month exhibitions, critcisim has come in remarks of promoting multiculturalism rather than promoting an awareness and understanding of the history of the African diaspora. An 'A Space for Art' black history month exhibition must aim to transform, Black British culture/heritage from a depository into a self-sustainable eco-system. Similarly to the world of art markets and institutions. In enterprise, sentiments of understanding, pride and reverence with the black community; the heritage this community venerates has been left shrouded under the guise of multiculturalism and post-colonial guilt. In response to the progressive nature of our climate, I am most motivated by the ideologies of Franz Fanon. As we, the curators, society's barometers of culture.
We, the ideological strays, are becoming the dogcatchers; instead of impounding and asserting dominance. The newly accepted dogcatchers offer up space for their kinfolk, encouraging like-mindedness and a sense of cultural understanding".
Text by Eddy Akin
Gayle Ebose
Gayle Ebose’s practice places both Ebose and her subject’s telling their story at the centre as they navigate life’s experiences through the body and skin they are in. She uses the process of portrait painting as a means to preserve the faces and voices of sojourners whose bodily image is recorded by Ebose’s real-time brushwork, depicting in-between, small moments over conversation. Her work reflects on the beauties and intricacies of life, whether it be motherhood and femininity or the trials of illness and the fragilities that come with an ever-changing, perishable body. The subjectivity of her portraits gives them agency, they are conversational and unapologetic in their presence. Each painting invites us to contemplate our own existence and inner wellbeing and gently points us to the awareness of God and how He fearfully and wonderfully makes us in His image.
Derrelle Elijah Goodhall
My work explores the relationship between analogue and digital processes. Focusing on a range of themes that deal with social contemporary issues, developing objects that transcend mediums and re-contextualise how this information is communicated, allowing the audience to go beyond the obligatory image. My process in approaching executions starts with a function-free mentality, which allows an investment into research and innovation. Juxtaposing non-traditional combinations with redaction to create a coherent piece/series of work. Society is a visceral overload and we are constantly bombarded by images. As Jan Van Toorn stated ‘media gives us a strongly reduced and distorted view on reality’ due to this there is a great amount of information missed in-between. I explore these realms by deconstructing and re-contextualising information through works that create a dialogue.
Sabina Silver
My work aims to challenge the dichotomous logic surrounding blackness and femininity. On a day to day basis, we are flooded with images which portray black women and by enlarge blackness, in a negative light. We are taught to believe she cannot be soft, holy or innocent. My current project, the “Children of the Sun” series, focuses on reclaiming these words. Using portraiture, my acrylic paintings are calculated in the way colour and texture are used as a form of storytelling. They are intended to open up further discourse about the role we as black people ought to play in defining ourselves.
Jameela Gordon-King
My work is a physical embodiment of the experience of a Black woman in the sphere of Western society. Intertwined with explorations of the relationship between self and Other in the Natural World.
Through a culmination of the mediums of literature, moving image and oil; I am able to immerse myself in the rich earth like tones of the black figure, complimented by crisp blues, creating a constant dialogue- ever changing and evolving as the natural light reflected on its surface changes. The colours in perfect harmony with the curvature of the brush strokes and tonal accents of the figures, often mimicking landscapes. This way of viewing colour is also translated into the way I view and portray skin, nature and water through words and film.
My work is a visual commentary around the ideas of ecology and our ever-changing world. I am fascinated by how the human footprint is affecting our planet. Our world is full of wonderful landscapes and I wish to highlight the continual damage caused through things such as deforestation, the politics of energy consumption, and the endangerment of wild species. I combine my African roots with British culture to producing work that makes people reflect on themselves, our planet: past, present and the future. I also make commentaries on topics such as religion and evolution, peace and unity, race and identity, climate change, war, survival and human adaptation to our ever-changing world. My practice is influenced by my experiences of travel and the imagery that I encounter. I have spent time in Italy, Nigeria, France, The Scottish Islands, Germany and United States, immersing myself in different cultures and collecting a variety of imagery to use in my next body of work. My ideas come from the new places I’ve visited; whenever I travel to a different country, my experience and images collected from the trip always have an impact on my next project. I source inspiration from past life experience, television documentaries, current affairs and everyday life in general. I start most of my projects with a topic or questions that require answers, with only a sense of direction and no idea where it’s going to end up. Whenever I’m starting a project, I always feel like I am about to start writing a movie script or a short story. I impact directly onto whatever material I’m working on: no sketchbooks, sketches or a plan; mixing, collating images and ideas to tell a story or make a statement.
Kay Gasei
Kay Gasei’s work is currently inspired by stories and myths, some known and some lesser. He tends to use symbolism, recurring motifs and nondescript characters in abstract spaces to act out these narratives.
He has a natural inclination to using small details in his work to which when found create a feeling of intimacy with the audience. Mystery and interest are also felt when looking at sections of his pieces as you try to gauge how each element relates and works with another to gradually coalesce the narrative in your mind then with what you see and then a new feeling appreciation and satisfaction from that little internal journey.
Kay Gasei
Kay Gasei’s work is currently inspired by stories and myths, some known and some lesser. He tends to use symbolism, recurring motifs and nondescript characters in abstract spaces to act out these narratives.
He has a natural inclination to using small details in his work to which when found create a feeling of intimacy with the audience. Mystery and interest are also felt when looking at sections of his pieces as you try to gauge how each element relates and works with another to gradually coalesce the narrative in your mind then with what you see and then a new feeling appreciation and satisfaction from that little internal journey.
Shannon Bono
Shannon Bono is a multimedia-driven artist, curator, cultural writer, and MA Art & Science graduate from Central Saint Martins University 2019. Bono is invested in producing symbolic layered figurative compositions that centralise the black female body as the subject, using it as a second canvas to tell stories of intersectionality and cultural practices with oil and acrylic paints as her medium. Her mission to advocate for the presence of black bodies is captured by the element of scale, colour, and anatomical manipulation. She re-imagines these bodies as a map of modernity employing surrealist cues to work as ‘artivisms’ (art+activism) against oppressive forces and share muted narratives. Her work over the past 2 years directly reflects the black female body as a source of tutelage and analysis for deeper thought and healing. Reclaiming the body and resisting negative colonial visual history in the genre of nudity is a common theme found in her paintings, she believes the body to be a very integral key of strength, symbolism, and vulnerability. Identity, sexuality, and body politics are channeled through her works, as a means of not only expressing black feminisms but also personal embodied experiences. Bono uses African textile culture and her background in biochemistry to perform as the foundation of her pieces, re-appropriating the symbolic nature of African fabrics fused with metaphorically using biological and chemical structures found in the body adds another layer in the storytelling aspect of Bono's work. Her goal is to educate, inspire and liberate her audience, as an interdisciplinary artist.
Bokani Tshidzu
Bokani’s technique involves urgent, gestural movements, exploring and responding to colours as they interact on the canvas. She believes in the integrity, freedom and honesty of abstract painting. Bokani has developed a method over several years of creating rational patterns that lead the viewers’ eye across the paintings, reminiscent of the dancing African printed cloths of her childhood. Bokani’s work is characterised by spontaneous, vibrant colour, fuelled by an exploration of themes and motifs engaging the viewer intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Painting has empowered her to move past the childhood loss of both parents to resolve questions of global female identity, black African heritage and belonging.
This tension between creative abandon, emotional expression and technical discipline elicit dynamic responses, creating works that are an on-going conversation between the artist and the viewer. Her digital works are infused with her colourful aesthetic and spiritual conversation, engaging with the powerful technology influences of our time; machine learning, computer visioning and artificial intelligence. Bokani Tshidzu was born in Zimbabwe and moved to England as a teenager. Her work is blending an African sensibility with the traditions of conceptual western art. She studied Politics with Economics (2009) at the University of Bath, as well as a Masters in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London (2020) specialising in Computational Art. The key theme of her digital practice is journey, creating a narrative that takes viewers on an immersive experience.
Alistair Mackinnon
I am a London based artist focusing on making immersive, interactive installations and depicting virtual worlds to investigate how our perception operates between cyberspace and reality and what this means sociopolitically for ethnic minorities. Reality is becoming integrated with virtual spaces and networks, and the tools that implement them are having an increasing impact upon our lives. The way our minds interact through human-computer interfaces dictates how the liminality of cyberspace is engaged with. Various technology corporations are subject to scrutiny on the absorption of institutional racism, this is observable through the filtering (or failure to) of voices and groups of people online in addition to the inadequate training of AI that fails to recognise black faces. My work facilitates these topics by translating the physical into the virtual, moving paintings of my own and others, 3D scanned ancient artifacts from online archives, and photographs of physical materials into Blender and Unity3D. Distortion is a key facet of my process and these forms are abstracted through a growing list of open source softwares. Examples include virtual galleries, collages, geometric simulations, and explorable environments. These spaces are a refractive lens of the internet’s psyche enmeshed with my image making practices which texture forms, figures and spaces. They seek to bring an altered perception of technology, its uses and a potential counteraction to it’s exploitable aspects. Soundscapes often accompany the works in pursuit of gesamtkunstwerk, making use of interdisciplinary practices.