The 2023 Young Contemporaries exhibition runs from January 8th – February 18th at Rele Gallary.
Founded in 2015 to act as a critical interface between the African and international art worlds, Rele Gallery is a dynamic contemporary art gallery with 2 locations between Lagos, Nigeria and Los Angeles, USA. The gallery represent and exhibit a fine selection of emerging and established artists working across diverse media in Africa and the diaspora. The gallery is focused on promoting a larger appreciation, followership, and engagement of art from Africa, making it accessible to both a local and global audience.
Initiated in 2016, the programme identifies, mentors and promotes early-career artists from Africa, by equipping them with tools and resources for artistic development. Each year, the Foundation guides artists via its virtual boot camp and residency programme in Ado-Ekiti towards the creation of critical projects, encouraging innovative explorations of existing inquiries as well as the birth of fresh ideas.
This year’s edition presents new projects done over the course of 6 months by seven artists —Adeniyi Adewole, Adetutu Adediran, Hanson Okere, Yoma Emore, Seidougha Linus Eyimiegha, Elfreda Fakoya and Tosobuafo Matilda Bardi.
Adeniyi Adewole
Adeniyi Adewole (@adeniyiadewole_) is a sculptor who creates works that relate the past to the contemporary world in form of fables, idioms, and proverbs. Adeniyi engages aluminum shavings as his material of choice in his expression.
Adeniyi examines the concept of charms in the Yoruba culture as a metaphor for the present social-related issues in this contemporary world, Issues such as the rise in relocation from Nigeria at this time popularly known as ’Japa’. His body of work aims to create a link between the past and present.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Adetutu Adediran
Adetutu Adediran (@hardetutu_g) is a visual artist who uses photography to express socio-economic happenings in her immediate environment.
Adetutu Documents the past and reflects the present with this series. Her lenses act as a mirror to both times and her photos attempt to answer the question of why people leave. is history still repeating itself? Where are we in the timing of history?
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Hanson Okere
Hanson Okere (@hanson_okere) is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works that center on the human experience. He engages in the drawing techniques of Pyrography.
Hanson Okere in this body of work titled (the odd one out) touches on themes of identity, struggling with social engagements of not fitting in, and the search for one’s self. Okere seeks to highlight the feeling of vulnerability and self-acceptance with his work.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Yoma Emore
Yoma Emore (@yomaemore) is a visual artist that works across the digital space and traditional art making. Emore is keen on the design principle of texture in her choice of fabric when it comes to her expressions.
Yoma in her Children of the Soil series, aims to explore how our primary identities are rooted in our parents. Emore is convinced the experiences and the stories that they share create mirror reflections that inform how we perceive ourselves. These, in turn, inform the dynamics and foundations of our relationships with them.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Seidougha Linus Eyimiegha
Seidougha Linus Eyimiegha -aka Mr. Danfo- (@mrdanfo) is a Multi-Media artist who focuses primarily on creating art that are informed by his immediate environment.
Mr Danfo visits personal life experiences regarding frequent road usage and being involved in a terrible road accident in 2020 with this series. Danfo engages extensively the history of safety and street signs generally and their continued relevance, and global usage.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Elfreda Fakoya
Elfreda Fakoya (@elfredakahlo) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist with a background in fashion. Fakoya has a penchant for stretching the functionality of fabric in an attempt to form a visual language true to herself and her experiences.
Elfreda’s body of work Juxtaposes traditional backgrounds and landscapes against the ones she encounters abroad. Her fabric collage communicates the socio-economic and cultural differences and their influences on her.
Fakoya attempts to hold these opposing cultural ideas in the same breath through layering and repetition of textiles, forms and colours.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
Tosobuafo Matilda Bardi
Bardi Tofobuafo Matilda (@tofo.bardi ) is a visual artist who through painting, examines surreal parts of the human mind. Her primary medium is oil on canvas.
Tofo believes the very essence of living is not just in our linear experiences of life but in our countless efforts to escape reality. The series “I met Cordelia somewhere not here” explores the escape where we also exist not as separate but as one.
Image courtesy of Rele Foundation
