Africa is rammed full of amazing artists and art galleries willing showcase eyes-catching works this 2023. From installations, live performances to other contemporary art forms, these galleries continue to inspire the next generation and helping the continent creative scene to flourish. We update you monthly with exhibitions you will not want to miss.
JC Bright: In Honour of Nwanyi Mbaise
ADA contemporary art gallery, Accra, Ghana (01 Feb 2023 – 26 Mar 2023)
ADA contemporary art gallery presents In Honour of Nwanyi Mbaise the debut solo exhibition by Nigerian artist Joseph Chisom “JC” Bright known for his vibrant abstract paintings. This collection of work is from two fresh series – Monuments in Honour of Nwanyi Mbaise and My Book of Colour Stories. Bright not only engages his viewers with large colourscapes, triggering aesthetic exuberance, he entices us into his world of discovery. Driven by momentary fascinations, Bright examines personal relationships and lived experiences through his linear applications of paint and texture within his compositions. In Honour of Nwanyi Mbaise is the artist’s invitation to his audience to plummet into his world of colour without fear but merely appreciation for its existence.
Each painting serves as an ode and testament to her upbringing that was deeply steeped in Catholicism and her profession as a nurse which naturally fed into his own identity formation. In these works, Bright rethinks traditional notions of religious symbolism and the connation of the Christian Cross while honouring his matriarch and her life of service and sacrifice.
The second series My Book of Colour Stories discusses the pressures placed on African artists to be vocal promoters of their culture on the world stage. Bright uses this series as an emotional diary of his frustration of unequal expression and purposefully rebels against the global perception of what African art can and should look like.
Bodies! Bodies! Bodies!
Rele Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria (Opens February 12, 2023)
Rele Gallery presents ‘Bodies! Bodies! Bodies!’ a group exhibition of works from contemporary Nigerian artists. This exhibition brings together artists whose practice employ the body — across diverse materials and approaches — in creating distinct scenes, scapes and narratives grounded in issues and contradictions of the present. The works presnted will be from Musa Ganiyy, Daniel Obasi, Ayanfe Olarinde, Yemi Osokoya, Jimi Agboola, Adaeze Okaro, Laja, Ojo Ayotunde and Dennis Onofua.
Live Art Network Africa
Live Art Network Africa, Cape Town, South Africa (16 Feb 2023 – 19 Feb 2023)
The Live Art Network Africa (LANA) will feature performances, film screenings, panels and a website launch featuring artists from several African countries. Live art (sometimes known as performance art) is an art form through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation.
At the LANA Gathering in February 2023, a website specifically designed for LANA will be launched — a resource and platform for amplifying live art on the continent and in the diaspora. The launch of the website will be accompanied by live art performances and film screenings from Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Algeria, Mozambique, South Africa and Nigeria amongst others. A symposium will engage critical themes around the development and sustainability of live art in Africa.
Ange-Frédéric Koffi: Territoire des perceptions, Sérénade des formes
Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan, Ivory Coast (cote D`ivoire) (26 Jan 2023 – 31 Mar 2023)
Galerie Cécile Fakhoury presents the first solo exhibition of Ange-Frédéric Koffi in Abidjan entitled Territoire des perceptions, Sérénade des formes.
Between image and object, the research of the Ivorian visual artist Ange-Frédéric Koffi builds an intimate and poetic geography that seeks to capture the state of grace of the journey. Moments of pause in a continuous displacement, his works have a temporality both furtive and meditative. Somewhere between the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Niger, the works in the exhibition capture what could have been only a reflection, a movement, a promise.
In this first solo exhibition in Abidjan, a print can be suspended, unrolled, or jerked as feelings or memories sometimes are. By giving his photographs these extra characters that take them to the border of disciplines, Ange-Frédéric Koffi tells with sweetness and melancholy his experience of the West African territory and the construction of its history.
