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CURRENT
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Annan Affotey
July - September 2022Annan Affotey was born and raised in Accra, Ghana. After graduating from Ghanatta College of Art and Design winning Best Student of Still Life, Best Imagination and Composition, and Best Abstract Drawing awards, Annan joined the Revolution Art Organization and displayed his work in several group and solo exhibitions in Accra. In 2013, Annan helped found the African Young Artist Organization (AYAO), an organization dedicated to supporting African youth in the arts through programs and exhibitions. Annan lived in Wisconsin from 2014-2019 and currently lives in Oxford, UK.
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Johannes Phokela
June - August 2022Gallery 1957 is ecstatic about hosting in its residency in Accra highly esteemed South African artist Johannes Phokela.Artist and sculptor, Phokela (b. 1966, Soweto) currently lives and works in Johannesburg. He formally begun pursuing art at Johannesburg’s Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) Academy in 1984 and concluded with a master’s degree from The Royal College of Art in London in 1993.
We eagerly await his solo exhibition with the Gallery later this year. -
Araba Opoku
April - July 2022Born in May 1998, Araba is a multi-disciplinary artist whose art career brims with enthusiasm and promise. She belongs to an art collective based in Accra, Artemartis, where she serves both as an artist and its creative director. Araba is also currently pursuing a degree in Psychology at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Through her art, Araba highlights the socio-economic issues faced in her home country, Ghana, with a focus on the problem of water scarcity in Accra. Her process begins with creating a digital image of her vision with technological tools that she recreates by undergoing a deep study of acrylic colors. She then executes her work with multiple layers of blue and green acrylic paint, introducing distorted subjects and texts that create a warped illusion of fluid motion and apparent depth. Physicality also plays an important role in Araba’s technique. By dripping diluted pigments over the canvas, she incorporates the beauty of its natural flow unto her art. Araba explains that she experiences the joy of abundance of water even as she works -
Boluwatife Oyediran
May - July 2022Oyediran (b. 1997, Ogbomoso, Nigeria) is a contemporary painter working primarily with figuration and text. His practice is informed by a deep commitment to reimagining and reorientating black identity in the canons of history, religion and Western art, using cotton as an essential symbol of interrogation.
His works prompt reflection on long-standing systemic oppressions, particularly through his interrogation of the connecting link between the history of fashion, the history of cotton, and how these histories are related to black people—most recently black men. This informs his signature approach of placing black people dressed in high fashion in cotton fields, as well as his installation of black people in spheres of power that are hostile to them, rebuilding them with the inclusion of black possibilities and representation.
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Ametefey Kukubor
May - July 2022We are proud to announce the skilled artist Ametefey Kukubor in residency.As a young boy, Amet (b. 1984) found drawing therapeutic – a hobby that served as an escape from the real world. Following his passion for drawing and portraiture, he enrolled in the acclaimed Ghanatta College of Art and Design, where he majored in painting. After graduating in 2007, Ametefe steadily progressed in his art career, exhibiting his works at the National Museum, African Regent Hotel, Golden Tulip Accra, Ghana and Novotel Accra City Center. He is currently living and working in Accra.
We look forward to his upcoming solo show at the Gallery 1957, Accra. -
Jonathan Okoronkwo
March - August 2022Jonathan’s creative process is of unique kind and so are, ultimately, his works of art.
First he scavenges for found mechanical objects and used motor oil in scrap yards. Then like an artist-magician in the studio, he mixes different mechanical fluids with different types of acids to melt, burn and dissolve scrap metal through a of series of mildly explosive chemical reactions in which he re-elaborates his prime material: used engine oil.
With this dense oil, Jonathan creates an intricate and complex visual language, presenting dystopian labyrinths of digitally remixed mechanical elements on prefabricated wooden slabs that absorb the oil while leaving dark engine residues on their surfaces. Jonathan’s processes, experiments and his eventual findings/results are driven by a strong fascination with the state of obsolescence of machines and what possibilities lie beyond the ‘grave’ for them. -
Afia Prempeh
March - July 2022Afia Prempeh (b. 1986 Kumasi, Ghana) is a genre-bending painter whose practice uses aesthetic traditions as a means of hacking them. Her background in still-life and landscape painting informs her interdisciplinary approach to portraiture.
A slow-process and detail-oriented perfectionist, Prempeh spent years avoiding the human figure. When she graduated from art school and began supporting herself from commissions, she found that she could not escape requests for portraits. The artist chose to face her fears-while giving her clients more than what they asked for. She would bring in multiple compositional strategies, and she would use her subjects' stories to explore narrative.
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Past
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Lauren Pearce
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Isshaq Ismail
March - April 2022 -
Aplerh-Doku Borlabi
December - May 2022 -
Tjasa Rener
March - April 2022 -
Naila Opiangah
March - May 2022 -
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 -
Collin Sekajugo
2021 -
Patrick Alston
2021 -
Patrick Eugène
2021 -
Kwesi Botchway
2020 -
Amoako Boafo
2019 -
Florine Demosthene
2017
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