Godfried Donkor - Mythologies, Proverbs and Fables: London
Gallery 1957 is proud to present Mythologies, Proverbs and Fables, a solo exhibition by Godfried Donkor, opening in London on Wednesday, 30 September and running until 28th November.
Godfried Donkor's new exhibition at Gallery 1957 brings together new and existing works that examine the circulation of people, images and objects between Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, and the histories that accompany them. Through paintings, embroideries on paper and a large-scale installation, the exhibition moves between Financial Times pages, archival photographs and auction catalogues, exploring how histories are recorded, circulated and assigned value, and how their meanings shift across contexts.
At the centre of Mythologies, Proverbs and Fables is Donkor’s engagement with archival and contemporary imagery. His large-scale installation, first created for It’s a Numbers Game at Firstsite, Colchester, in 2026, brings together enlarged figures drawn from auction-house catalogues, reflecting on the displacement and circulation of African objects and the histories attached to them.
Across the paintings and embroideries, Donkor reworks military and ceremonial scenes, portraiture, masquerade and popular culture. Financial Times pages become both material and subject, with embroidered profiles, ships, heraldic emblems and Ghanaian symbols bringing the language of contemporary finance into dialogue with histories of trade, colonialism and enslavement.
Moving between archive, canvas, newspaper, thread and catalogue, Mythologies, Proverbs and Fables continues Donkor’s exploration of inherited images and histories, bringing familiar visual forms into new relationships and contexts.
Download the press release below for more information.
