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CURRENT
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Naila Opiangah
March - April 2022, Studio 3Gallery 1957 is glad to host Nala Opiangah in residency.
Naïla Opiangah (b. 1994, Libreville, Gabon) is an artist and writer working between New York City and Accra. In 2013, she moved to the US from Gabon to study architecture and design. She attended Chicago’s Harold Washington College and the Illinois Institute of Technology from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture. While undergoing her architecture training, she started developing a strong interest in the drawing and painting of nude Black women. Her work today explores concepts of identity, self-assessment and interpersonal relationships, through a more abstract depictions of nude Black women. Her paintings are primarily oil on diverse fabrics and watercolor on paper.
Her solo show with Gallery 1957, Accra will be presented in June 2022.
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Aplerh-Doku Borlabi
December 2021 - April 2022, Studio 4Gallery 1957 is glad to host Aplerh-Doku Borlabi in residency.
Aplerh-Doku Borlabi (b.1987, Ghana) was formally trained at Ghanatta College of Arts and Design, the alma mater of his mentor, acclaimed contemporary artist, Amaoko Boafo. Borlabi’s early works applied his foundational learning in academic painting, creating naturalistic compositions, and for years he grappled with finding a visual language that felt authentic. After 7 years of painting, Borlabi turned to his natural environment to embody his own culture and ethnic identity.
His solo show with Gallery 1957, Accra will be presented in June 2022.
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Tjasa Rener
March - April 2022, Studio 2Gallery 1957 is proud to have had the brilliant artist Tjasa Rener in residency for the past two months.
Ghana-based Slovenian artist, Rener has studied painting at Academy of Fine Arts & Design at University of Ljubljana and printmaking at Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Zagreb, Croatia and has participated in many group and solo exhibitions around the globe.
During her residency at Gallery 1957, Rener has painted a number of large and medium portraits with extremely fast strokes of paint and charcoal through a sketchy technique that defines her unique aesthetic by capturing her personal impression of the person portrayed. Every figure she has painted has a particular relationship to Gallery 1957 and has posed during a live painting session with the artist in her studio.
We look forward to exhibiting her work in Accra in her first solo exhibition with the gallery opening later this year. -
Isshaq Ismail
March - April 2022, Studio 4We are so happy to have had brilliant artist Isshaq Ismail (b. 1989) in residency with us.
Ismail's bold and colorful paintings explore how the social, cultural and political conditions of contemporary life impact identity. In a style that he describes as “semi-abstraction,” Ismail paints peculiar faces and figures in vivid impasto, typically using black or brown hues and depicting them with accentuated features. His work embodies dynamism with thick sweeps of gestural brushstrokes, sharp strikes of the palette knife and the precise application of acrylic paint across the canvas. The everyday process of human society inspires his pieces and engages viewers with personal experiences and projection into the future from a personally perceived point of view. Through these striking and evocative works, he aims to subvert and question canonical ideas of beauty; explore themes of desire, resilience, hope and power and in his own words, “represent the masses and advocate for the voiceless.”
Ismail was born in Accra, Ghana. Since graduating from Ghanatta College of Arts and Design in 2012, he has exhibited in both his native Ghana and internationally in New York, Miami, London, Dubai and Cape Town.
We look forward to his opening May 13, 2022 at Gallery 1957 Accra. -
Lauren Pearce
April - May 2022Lauren Pearce (b. 1988) is multi-media artist who lives and works in Cleveland Ohio. Her output ranges from complex free hand drawings of varying sizes to outsized outdoor murals executed in vibrant colours. Also adept at portraiture, her versatility is reflected in the varied sizes these are executed in, from smaller intimate painting to canvases measuring nine by nine feet.
Ever cognisant of how her African American identity influences her practice, the artist has consciously tapped into her more expressive self, employing a wide range of materials, colours, and surface media in the production of her art. The free reign has resulted in a fuller expression of her views about her Jamaican heritage, wider racial politics, feminist ideology and motherhood.
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Jonathan Okoronkwo
March - August 2022, Studio 1 -
Araba Opoku
April - July 2022 -
Past
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Nabeeha Mohamed
December - February 2022 -
Juwon Aderemi
December 2021 - Februrary 2022 -
Peter Ojingiri
December 2021 - Februrary 2022 -
Kofi Awuyah
November 2021 - January 2022 -
Kaloki Nyamai
May - June 2021 -
Artsoul Kojo
May - July 2021 -
Cornelius Annor
March - May 2021 -
Afia Prempeh
2021 -
Patrick Alston
2021 -
Patrick Eugène
2021 -
Kwesi Botchway
2020 -
Amoako Boafo
2019 -
Florine Demosthene
2017
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