Founded in November 2020, the Noldor Residency is Ghana’s first independent artist residency and fellowship program for contemporary African artists in Africa. Based in Accra, Ghana, Noldor invites emerging African artists with previous Technical training, who have limited access to infrastructure and material resources, to expand their practice in a dedicated studio space and retreat.
This year, 13 fellows were selected and here are their profiles.
Mobolaji Ogunrosoye
Mobolaji Ogunrosoye (b.1991) is a collage and conceptual artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. She employs collage and photography to explore selfhood, body image, and the impact of societal influences on personal identity as it is related to Nigerian women. It also revolves around ideation and exploring the different ways in which images of the female body may be distorted using collage.
In 2018, Mobolaji’s first solo exhibition “Loose Woman,” was curated by A White Space Creative Agency. In 2020, she participated in an inaugural virtual residency at Window, Winnipeg, where she explored the interpretation of digital and analog Collage as one harmonized medium within my practice. She was selected as a finalist for the Art X prize, 2021.
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Dela Anyah
Dela Anyah [b.1986] is a self-taught textile artist, who works primarily with discarded tyre tubes and tyres. His works explore themes of identity and rebirth through sculpture and installation. He was born, lives and works in Accra, Ghana.
Employing a complex array of woven (discarded) tyre tubes sourced from various regions of Ghana and beyond, his abstract compositions examine the transformations of the human soul. He draws on his personal history, influences from Ewe culture combined with observations from his religious upbringing and escapades to his mother’s fashion workshop located in their home.
Throughout his work, monochromatic strips of tubes of various sizes complement each other harmoniously, with glimpses of their former lives carved within each tube and tire. In this way Dela Anyah, presents a metaphor for the ways in which transformation comes not in isolation, but through love, unity and support from persons of varied cultures or backgrounds; as well as the creativity of a Higher Artist, Creator, God.
Although concepts of identity and rebirth are central to his work, Dela Anyah is also interested in pushing found objects beyond their ordinary use, exploring materiality through architectural and
garment construction processes.
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Araba Opoku
Araba Opoku (b. 1998) is a ghanian multidisciplinary contemporary artist. She explores individuals’ mental health issues and how people are external in emotional states, be it domestic or infrastructural, from the outside perspective.
She is currently a student of the University of Ghana, Legon, pursuing a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Philosophy. She belongs to an art collective: Artemartis, where she serves as both an artist and its creative director at large. She has worked on art-focused fashion projects throughout her early career, aiming to change and evolve the mental landscape through the continent, which informs her textile-like painterly approach. Opoku educates children in orphanages on art and helps them contribute their talents.
She finds inspiration from figurative painters such as Nigerian artist Adebayo Bolaji and painter Francis Bacon, Bob Thompson and artist Joana Choumail. Araba has exhibited and worked with national and international companies and organizations, including Nubuke Foundation, Apple, Vlisco International. She is the first recipient of the inaugural Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize awarded by Gallery 1957. She recently had one of her works at the Arts x Lagos, and she will have her first solo exhibition in Accra at the ADA \ Contemporary Art Gallery next year, March 2022. She is currently the Visiting Fellow at the institution and confirmed as the Junior Fellow at Noldor for 2022 next year.
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Boluwatife Oyediran
Boluwatife Oyediran [b. 1997] is a Nigerian-based emerging artist; his works focus on the visual representation of the beauty inherent within the heritage of black identity and the dilemma that accompanies being black.
He completed his studies at Emmanuel Alayande College of Education in 2016, focusing on Fine and Applied Arts. He had concentrated on English Literature; within his studies. Boluwatife finds inspiration from the realism of Kehinde Wiley and the surrealist landscape of Rene Magritte, and the racial politics and mythology of Harmonia Rosales. He is currently the first Visiting Fellow from Nigeria at the Noldor Residency for the 2021 year. He will enter 2022 has as our Junior Fellow. He will debut his first solo exhibition with Afikaris in France next year, March 2022! He will also be part of the WOP Art Fair in Switzerland with the Kutlesa Gallery this coming November.
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Maku Azu
Maku Azu is a Ghanaian African Contemporary Artist based in Thailand. She is best known for her emotive and jarring portraits made from unconventional materials, such as heavily textured construction materials, spray-paints, rubbed off acrylics and found metals; there are no boundaries. After studying International Business Management, she made a drastic decision to follow the path truest to herself, Art. She is passionate about expressing deep and emotive psychological states in her work.
Maku as a multidisciplinary artist is additionally a sculptor, who enjoys creating sensually engaging, organic, semi abstracted forms. With every piece she creates, she hopes to inspire a private and sacred space, where she connects with each viewer mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
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Samuel Vittu
Samuel Semako Vittu (b. 1991), in Badagry, a coastal town of Lagos, believes that the face is laced with diverse stories. His work constantly interrogates the exterior of the face as an entry point into larger issues in society with the use of acrylic, oil and charcoal. He fuses portraiture with anthropomorphism, employing bulgy eyes as windows and zoom lens into the happenings, experiences, thoughts, and crisis that goes on in the mind of his subjects.
Samuel comes from a family where an uncle had studied art, and had given him the basic and formidable training during his formative (artistic) years. Those years could be described as one of concerted exposition. As a trained painter and art educator, he holds a Nigerian Certificate in Education from Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education as well as a Bachelor of Art Education in painting from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. As a practicing artist, Samuel works chiefly across painting and drawing. Working with charcoal, oil, acrylic and
canvas has been his chosen media to register and visualize his inspiration, ideas and imaginations. The resulting artworks from his usually mixed-media experimentations are figuratively conceptual, suggestive, evocative and formalistic.
Samuel has participated in exhibitions such as Life in my city, Lagos zone at the National Gallery in (2013), he was also a participating artist in the (2019) group exhibition tagged ‘’DREAM’’ at Vivid exclusive art gallery. In 2021, he was part of the exhibiting artist at the Refrigerator poetry online exhibition, On Display, Wielding power at Gallery at the Landmark (2021). Samuel is the 2022 Visiting Fellow at the Noldor Residency.
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Joseph Awuah-Darko
Joseph Awuah-Darko (b. 1996, London, UK; lives and works in Accra, Ghana) is a British-born Ghanaian contemporary artist best known for his multi-disciplinary practice of painting and woven tapestry work. His practice autobiographically references major broader themes of depression [mental health], spirituality and identity, as well as procreative sexuality.
Beyond acrylic paintings, Joseph earnestly employs interdisciplinary techniques rooted in local poster design with works on canvas. Additionally Ghanaian basket weaving and European tapestry-making are also engaged to create both abstract and loosely figurative works that depict symbols of spirituality – rendered in the dystopian beings he describes as Sentinels which famously reference the Akuaba fertility doll originating from Akan culture in Southern Ghana. Often depicting moments of conflict or amorous harmony, Awuah-Darko pulls influences from African literature, Ashanti poetry and internalized cognitive dreams played back to himself. The tapestry process usually begins through the weaving of found plastic which is a material he deliberately utilizes in acknowledgement of its complex history. Plastic acts both as industrial friend and environmental foe given its domestic use yet peril towards the environment respectively. With a documented autobiographical history of suicide attempts, Awuah-Darko’s work presents idiosyncratic visions of the perennial battles with mental wellness and identity, while also alluding to the complicated histories of capitalism and systemic policing. Joseph utilizes segments of weaved Ghanaian basket making, commercial dyes and incorporates satin roses to create the figurative elements within the conceived large scale woven tapestries. Influenced by artists such as Henri Matisse, Magdalene Odundo, El Anatsui, Andy Warhol and Atta Kwami, he repetitively investigates emotion through form and shapes, interlacing reality with his singular magical escapist dream state often aligning with his global view. The artist emphasizes a sense of community as he attempts to increasingly place artisanal everyday Ghanaians in the center of his artistic production as a key attribute to his creative proliferation.
One of Joseph’s recent bodies of work is a tapestry that deeply considers the crippling effects of mental health issues which statistically acts as one of the leading causes of death amongst persons in black/African communities. The work ‘Purslane War’ engages atypical hues such as yellow, black and magenta to create this vibrant, intricately assembled tapestry actively exploring the height of internal conflict in a depicted tug-of-war. This mirrors doubt and uncertainty alluding to the artist’s ongoing battle with sustaining mental health etched in a lack of personal equanimity.
With a solo exhibition in 2019 with Gallery 1957 under his belt,Joseph Awuah-Darko has rebirthed his career forging a new visual vocabulary from the one he initially debuted. In the process he still continues to dedicate a significant amount of his time at the helm of institutions dedicated to uplifting emerging practitioners from the continent; he is the recognized director and founder of the Noldor Artist Residency and the president of the Institute Museum of Ghana.
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Sibusiso Ngwazi
Sibusiso Ngwazi is a self-taught South African artist born in KZN, now living and working in Cape Town.
His work is abstract, grounded in figuration, suffused with the artist’s unconstrained spirituality. His comfort with imperfection, raw emotion, and spiritual presence, enable his mastery of a poetic abstracted world, confidently occupying space with bold stroke-making. After moving to Cape Town in 2013 and exploring the art scene, he met fellow artist, Anthony De Klerk, who introduced him to his studio in Salt River, where he began to work in exchange for classes. It was through these Saturday classes where Sibu first began to learn about the use of negative space, exploring drawing nudes and still life, amongst others. It was also during this period where his interest in abstraction heightened. In 2015, he began to exhibit his work at De Klerk’s studio.
Following this, he has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Cape Town, one of which was alongside Andile Dyalvane and Themba Mkhangeli. He had his first solo exhibition in 2017. During this period he also collaborated with artists’ Muso Masoabi and Jeanne Pfaff. In early 2021, Sibu began hosting open studio exhibitions at his home in Little Mowbray. His work has caught the attention of key figures in the South African art world, such as Ashraf Jamal, who writes about him in his upcoming book ‘Abstraction and Figure’.
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Bismark Deku
Bismark Deku was born in the greater Accra region where he received his basic education and trained to be a sensational Fine Artist. His talent in art was evident at an early age and he specialized in it upon completing his Vocational/Technical training at the Opportunity Industrialization Centre (O.I.C), Ghana.
He specializes in acrylic and his style of painting ranges from realism to semi abstract figures. His technique mostly comes in the form of applications of paint and wild strokes to express his feeling toward the subject matter.
Themes for Deku’s works are inspired by everyday happenings and day to day cultural activities which needs to be well recorded and interpreted artistically. He hopes to reach the world at large starting from basin impact in his immediate environment.
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Festus Kehinde Alagbe
Reflecting on his childhood memories and dreams, as he grew up in an African home, He engages the viewer’s imagination and emotions. Festus, skillfully achieves a balance of realistic and abstract passage in his work. Festus works with oils, acrylic and charcoal to create large scale canvas(es) of predominantly bisected faces combined with floral and abstraction elements.
The flowers in his work depict times and seasons; Flowers bloom, blossom and wither because they are seasonal.
He uses the flowers primarily to capture time, which is transient. The elements he uses in the back are biomorphic and fluid in shape, depicting structures and institutions in the world.
He captures and depicts black bodies bursting through with flower elements, to refer to the optimism that lies within the pain of being black, depicting a sense of growth and resilience in the face of ubiquitous racial prejudice and adversity largely faced by people of color. And the flowers bursting through different genders, captures different emotions and expressions.
He is a contemporary African surrealist, paying homage to quintessential surrealists; Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dali and René Magritte in his work. He explores surrealism within his own visual vocabulary from an authentic African perspective is something he enjoys.
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Samuel Olayombo
Samuel Olayombo [b. 1991] is a Nigerian artist who studied fine and applied arts at the University of Benin. A lover of texture, Olayombo works with oils, acrylics, charcoal and pastels to create vibrant, dramatic, large scale canvases of predominantly male, non gender-normative portraits. Using a palette knife to convey intricate, 3-dimensional skin textures, Olayombo pays homage to classic artists such as Vincent Van Gough and Arja Valimaki in his work. His fascination with ‘scarring’ prevalent in certain Yoruba cultures as well as toxic masculinity, macho male culture and constructs of sexuality, gender roles and gender equality are the key narratives Olayombo explores within his compositions.
Growing up with five sisters in a patriarchal society has influenced his work in his choice of colour tones preferring traditionally “female” colours, like rose and pastel pinks, to depict his seemingly “brute” masculine subjects like his Cowboy series: “I saw a lot of unfairness. For me, regardless of the gender, we are all equal and this is the major reason why I employ the colour pink into my paintings. I want to correct that notion that pink is feminine.” Samuel will be a Visiting Fellow for the 2022 year!
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Kelvin Ansong
Kelvin Ansong is an emerging Ghanaian Artist, ambitious and passionate while possessing a classic work methodology. As an inspiring African creative fine artist, Kelvin aims to shed light on societal issues through his art. He’s best known for using distinct shapes and curves to create abstract, landscapes, wildlife and portrait pieces.
Kelvin believes in the visual depiction of emotions as another way to grasp the complexity of human nature hence the creation of kescorism which is his main art style. He has artworks Such as destiny , spoken (Series), queen on my own (series) , potentials (series), sweet mother, and many more.
He has held countless exhibitions in places including, Alisa Hotel, The British council, Keteke art and craft, Charlewote, Defia art Gallery, German-Swiss international school, Alliance Francaise (Spoken Exhibition), Columbia Embassy. Ghana (Abstract and surrealistic) Impact Hub, and Native Bar (Art is my life exhibition) with the occasion graced by the Columbian ambassador to Ghana and Vortex at the Gallery Elle Lokko.
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Paul Ayihawu
Nigerian-based contemporary african artist Paul Ayihawu uses charcoal and Acrylic to tell the story of african in a new light. His work focuses more on the social-cultural issues and the impact of colonialism on African cultures and values. He expressed this often with flipped portraits of black people dressed in a hybrid of western and african dresses majorly in ‘ankara’, an african print cloth. He is fervent about telling the untold, unheard and silent stories of the black community. His works are in private collections in the USA, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. He will be our 2022 Visiting Fellow at the Noldor Residency.
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