The term “multi-hyphenate” originated in the 1970s and was mostly used in Hollywood to refer to creatives who fell outside the traditional notion of a “triple threat” of singing, dancing, and acting. A multi-hyphenate is a person with several professions or skills so a multi-hyphenate artist is one who…

Safi FayeImage courtesy of Le Quotidien One of the few women who worked in the early filmmaking period in the 1960s post-independence was Safi Faye. Faye was a Senegalese film director and ethnologist. Born in 1943 in Dakar, she was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially…

El Anatsui is a Ghanaian multimedia artist who has gained recognition as one of the most celebrated artists in the history of Africa and a leading figure in the contemporary art scene. He has spent a significant portion of his career residing and working in Nigeria. At present,…

Gagosian’s Britannia Street Gallery is hosting an exhibition titled Rites of Passage from the 16th of March to the 28th of April 2023. The exhibition – curated by British-Nigerian curator: Peju Oshin – delves into the concept of “liminal space”; a phrase coined by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep…

Lina Iris Viktor is a Liberian-British multidisciplinary artist who combines ancient and contemporary art forms to tell a unique story and create a link between a past that is almost lost in view, an extensive present while envisioning the different possibilities of the future. Image courtesy of the…

Sungi Mlengeya was born in 1991 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is a self-taught artist who works primarily in the acrylic medium on canvas creating paintings that are free, minimalist and with a curious use of negative space. She is one whose figurative portraiture is a commemoration…

Eritrean artist, Ficre Ghebreyesus explored in his work themes of migration, memory, and identity. During his teenage years, he was very much involved in the fight for Eritrean independence. He later abandoned his military involvement and left the country various countries such as Sudan, Italy, and Germany, before…