Residencies

 (b.1988 Accra, lives and works in Accra)

 

Gallery 1957 is excited to welcome back artist in residence Nana Bruce, a figurative and portrait artist based in Accra.

 

During his second residency with the gallery, Bruce will create a new body of work that delves into the complexities of selfhood and human nature. We look forward to his solo exhibition later this year.

 

(b. 1995, Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire. Lives and works in Accra, Ghana)

 

Gallery 1957 is excited to welcome back artist in residence, Rita Mawuena Benissan, a Ghanaian-American interdisciplinary artist, on a mission to reimagine the royal umbrella, transforming it from a mere protective object into a potent symbol of Ghanaian identity.

 

With a profound passion for art and cultural history, Rita collaborates with traditional artisans to breathe life into archival photos, immortalizing individual figures and communal scenes while embodying the beauty and power of her people.

 Born in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire in 1995 to Ghanaian parents, Rita's journey led her to the United States as a baby, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Apparel and Textile Design from Michigan State University in 2017, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in photography and an African Studies Program Certificate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021.

 

In 2020, Rita established Si Hene, a foundation dedicated to preserving Ghana's chieftaincy and traditional culture, leaving a significant mark on Ghana's artistic and historical narratives. Through her foundation, she played a pivotal role in the reopening of the National Museum of Ghana in 2022 and served as the Chief Curator at the Institute Museum of Ghana (Noldor Artist Residency) until 2022. Furthermore, Rita served as the artistic director for the Open Society Foundation's Restitution Conference in Accra, demonstrating her commitment to cultural preservation and representation.

Rita's artistic prowess has garnered global recognition, with exhibitions at prestigious venues such as Arts + Literature Laboratory in Wisconsin (2021), the Foundation Contemporary of Art at Afrochella Festival (2021), Dak'Art - Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain at the IFAN African Art Museum in Dakar, Senegal (2022), and the group show "EFIE: Museum as Home" in Dortmund, Germany, Mitchell and Innes Gallery in New York (2023).

 

Her solo exhibition, "In the World Not of the World," curated by Ekow Eshun at Gallery 1957 in Accra (2023), stands as a testament to her unwavering dedication to redefining the narrative of Ghanaian identity through beauty and strength. Rita has exhibited at 1-54 Marrakesh, in Morocco (2024) alongside Amoako Boafo and Zanele Muholi and participated in a group exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2024) called Unapologetic WomXn: The Dream is the Truth curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton. She currently has her first museum show at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa and works featured in the Sharjah Biennale in UAE.

 

Rita’s works have been acquired by private and institutional collections, including Foundation H, The Dean Collection, Fundacion Yannick Y Ben, Paola Pavirani Golinelli, Nicolas Berggruen, Amoako Boafo, and many others.

Gallery 1957 is thrilled to welcome Denyse Gawu-Mensah to our Artist in Residence program.

Denyse, awarded first place in the fourth edition of the Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize in 2024, is an artist who stitches pieces of history and intimacy, re-imagining and transferring them through image transfer techniques on different surfaces.
Her mixed-media works are delicate yet profound, questioning the unfolding of time and history within the domestic sphere and our personal memories. Denyse also explores the transmission of knowledge and tradition across generations, examining what is passed down or lost depending on context. Through her vintage-inspired approach, she creates retro artworks that she places in immersive, new—yet familiar—environments, inviting the viewer to time-travel back to their own grandmother’s homes. She reworks fragments of the past into layered compositions that speak to continuity and change. 

Drawing from a rich family archive of photographs dating back to the 1960s, she reconstructs personal and collective histories, transforming vintage images into tactile records of time—worn, faded, yet enduring. Working with sac linen, she embraces its raw, textured surface as a vessel for memory, allowing its organic quality to enhance the aged and archival nature of her work. Through ongoing experimentation with image transfer, screen printing, and digital collage, she pushes the limits of her technique, finding new ways to preserve and reinterpret the past. This year, Denyse continues to expand her practice in preparation for her upcoming solo exhibition, deepening her exploration of archival storytelling.