ZONAMACO Art Fair will hold from, 8 to 12 February, 2023.
Address: Mexico Stand EJ10, Centro Citibamex, Mexico City.
FOR ITS VERY FIRST PARTICIPATION IN THE ZONAMACO ART FAIR, AFIKARIS WILL PRESENT TWO ARTISTS; JEAN DAVID NKOT AND OZIOMA ONUZULIKE. BOTH ARTISTS LIVE AND PRACTICE IN AFRICA AND HAVE BEEN ACTIVE IN ART FAIRS, EXHIBITIONS, PUBLICATIONS AND PRIZES AND AWARDS.
Both Jean David Nkot (b.1989, Cameroon) and Ozioma Onuzulike (b. 1972, Nigeria) focus on resources from Africa and the stories behind them, whether they relate to the human condition, to the slave trade, history or socio economic factors. This topic appears extremely relevant to the ‘here and now’ considering the lack of resources and over-consumption of non renewable materials which contribute to climate change and ultimately the human condition and the way in which humans will have to live once the access to these materials becomes restricted.
Ozioma Onuzulike creates ceramics and mixed media pieces. On the occasion of ZonaMaco, Onuzulike’s series entitled The Palm Kernel Shell Beads Project will be showcased. Onuzulike shapes clay to design pieces that look like palm kernels. After the slave trade era, trade in palm oil, palm kernel and other natural resources of Africa had become more intense. Nsukka, the region where the artist lives, was particularly noted for palm oil and palm kernel production in servicing the lopsided trade/power relations with the Western world. Onuzulike considers the palm kernel for its key historical value. If it naturally looks like a bead, the artist emphasizes this trait by turning it into a glass bead. Glass beads used to be a trading currency – also called ‘Slave Beads’. In contemporary African societies, beads have become items of prestige and social status based on the gesture of accumulation. Thus, Onuzulike creates precious objects, symbols of power and protection. He participates in the ongoing conversation around the issue of social change and our relationship with the environment.
Jean David Nkot works primarily with acrylic and silkscreen on canvas to create figurative works that tell a story of human conditions. Through the works that will be on view during the fair, Nkot looks at mining in Africa in order to highlight human conditions because of the exploitation of resources. Bodies carry and display his discourse.The skin merges with the territory to showcase the impact of one on the other, as well as the close links bonding them. The body is at the same time the matter and the tool used to answer the needs of an economy where overconsumption is a norm. This new body of work is about meeting those who evolve underground looking for precious stones. In this way, the artist contributes to documenting his time and plunges viewers between the upper and the under, on the steps of these heroes who make the modern economy possible.
Thus, AFIKARIS booth promises to explore how raw materials from Africa are exploited and the effect this has on humans living in African countries.
AFIKARIS GALLERY
About AFIKARIS Gallery
Formed in 2018 with the mission to promote artists from Africa and its diaspora, AFIKARIS settled down in 2020 for two years at 38 rue Quincampoix, before moving to a bigger space at 7 rue Notre-Dame de-Nazareth. The gallery showcases works by artists from Africa and its diaspora and mainly aims to provide their works with international visibility through exhibitions, art fairs and through collaborations with cultural institutions.
The gallery aims to be a place for exchange and dialogue, engaging in conversation with the public. AFIKARIS gives voices to its artists on topical issues as well as subjects at the heart of their art. It is also a space for reflection about the African contemporary art scene. The gallery highlights both emerging and well renowned talents.
The exhibitions underline the synergies existing within the works of the different artists on common themes, whilst echoing modern day issues. This emphasises the multiplicity of the points of view and confronts them. The gallery mainly proposes duo and solo shows to leave room for artists to express themselves. Duo shows initiate a dialogue between two visions of a subject, whilst solo shows are a real carte blanche given to the artist featured.
Ongoing exhibitions: The Forgotten Branches | Solo Show | Omar Mahfoudi
AFIKARIS Gallery l 7 rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, 75003 Paris, France
Until 25 February, 2023 | www.afikaris.com
Address: AFIKARIS Gallery – 7 rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, 75003 Paris, France – www.afikaris.com
JEAN DAVID NKOT
About Jean David Nkot
Jean David Nkot (b. 1989, Douala, Cameroon) is a visual artist who works and lives in Douala. A graduate from the Institute of Artistic Training (IFA), Mbalmayo, Cameroon (2010), he subsequently joined the Institute of Fine Arts, Foumban, where he obtained a degree in Drawing and Painting. In 2017, he took part in the Moving Frontiers post-Master’s Degree, focused on the topic of borders, organized by the National School of Arts, Paris- Cergy, France.
Working primarily with acrylic and posca, he continuously seeks to revisit his pictorial language and often experiments with other techniques, including silkscreen printing. His highly characteristic signature style places hyperrealist portraits over complex cartographies. A “painter of the human condition,” his artworks expose faces submerged by inscriptions, depicting characters both reflective of and reflected upon their physical and geopolitical context. Moving away from the personal identities of his subjects, Nkot draws attention to the embodied turmoil inhabiting them – in a manner reminiscent of Zhang Dali, Francis Bacon, and Jenny Saville.
Jean David Nkot’s work has been presented in key international institutions including: Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris, France; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany; Doual’art, Douala, Cameroon; National Museum of Cameroon, Yaounde.
Nkot’s works have been showcased in a solo show – entitled Les pommes de la discorde – at AFIKARIS Gallery during summer 2022.
Image Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery
OZIOMA ONUZULIKE
About Ozioma Onuzulike
Ozioma Onuzulike (b.1972, Achi, Nigeria) is a ceramics artist and poet. He graduated first class from the department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he is currently a professor of ceramic art and African art and design history.
Centered around the aesthetical, symbolical and metaphorical nature of clay (his basic material) and the clay-working processes, his work gives life to large tapestries. While working with African natural resources, his works are assembled from ceramic elements he crafts one by one by hand. Onuzulike transforms the clays through several firing circles as a metaphor for socio-environmental turmoil. The items of personal adornment and protection that arise from this long process, embody his idea of personal and environmental securities as lying primarily with our individual actions and choices.
The artist’s first solo exhibition, Seed Yams of Our Land, was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019, along with a presentation of his poetry collection of the same title, also published by the CCA. Onuzulike’s works were included in the Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times exhibition that was recently concluded at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge. His work has also been featured in international art fairs such as The Armory Show in New York and 1-54 London.
Onuzulike’s work will be showcased in a solo presentation at AFIKARIS Gallery in Paris in June 2023.
Press Release submitted by: Michaëla Hadji-Minaglou, Gallery Manager, michaela@afikaris.com
