Emma Prempeh
Overview
Emma Prempeh, Go Liming, 2022, Oil, Acrylic, Iron Powder, Print and Imitation Gold Leaf on canvas, 190 x 145 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
Emma Prempeh lives and works in London. She studied at Goldsmiths University of London graduating in 2019 winning the Alumno/Space bursary award for 2020. She recently attended MA Painting at the Royal College of Art under the LeverHulme Trust Arts Scholarship winning the Valerie Beston Trust Arts award for 2022.
The starting point to Prempeh’s paintings is the matter of blackness – the tonal properties of the colour establishes the ground to her paintings and a cinematic basis to invoke and project memories of events, people, and places to emphasise an appreciation of ancestral time and relationships, selfhood and transformation. Schlag metal, a brass alloy of copper and zinc imitative of gold leaf, is a material that Prempeh applies to selected areas of her often large-scale paintings. Over time this oxidises creating slow, live visual changes that animate the image and create a meta-narrative around our experiences of the passing of time, memory and its representation. Prempeh occasionally experiments with projected still and moving imagery to create painting installations that invite other experiential and performative encounters with her work.
Recent exhibitions include: Conversations, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK (group - 2024); Wandering Under A Shifting Sun, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2024); In the Blood, Tiwani Contemporary, London UK (group - 2024); Where Dreams are Born and Peace Restored, Bwo Art Gallery, Douala, Cameroon (group - 2024); In Presence and Absence, Ordovas Gallery, London, UK (solo - 2023); Free The Wind, The Spirit And The Sun, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London UK (group - 2023); With Tenderness, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (group - 2023); You were, you are, and you always will be, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos Nigeria (solo - 2022); In and Out of Time, Ada\contemporary Art Gallery, Accra Ghana (solo - 2021); Raise Your Glass, The Lightbox Gallery and Museum, Woking UK (solo - 2020); The Faces of Love, V.O Curations Post Residency Solo Show, London UK (solo - 2020) ; On Love, Home by Ronan Mckenzie, London UK (group - 2022); Friends and Family, Pi Artworks, London (group - 2022); At Peace, Gillian Jason Gallery, London UK (group - 2021); Mother of Mankind, Ada \ Contemporary Gallery X Hofa Gallery, London UK (group - 2021); Onward and Upward-Art in The Garden of Life, Droog Gallery, Amsterdam the Netherlands (group - 2020); Redressing the Balance #woman Artists, The Lightbox, Woking UK(group - 2020); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London UK (group - 2020); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds UK (group - 2019).
Works
Press
Some Signs Follow: Emma Prempeh’s Solo Exhibition
Ifeoluwa Olutayo , The 49th street, March 22, 2025Belonging In-Between
Cecilia Monteleone, Muse Magazine, March 13, 2025Emma Prempeh Captures 'Belonging' in Flux at Tiwani Contemporary
Cinematic works that explore shifting Caribbean landscapes.Erin Ikeuchi, Hypebeast, March 10, 2025‘It’s important because it’s a part of me’
: why a growing number of African diasporic artists are showing work on the continentGameli Hamelo, THE ART NEWSPAPER, March 4, 2025Emma Prempeh wants you to feel what you can’t touch
Izzy Bilkus, PLASTER, January 8, 2025Conversations: celebrating work by Black British woman and non-binary artists
Walker Art Gallery, September 13, 2024Royal Mail issues Windrush 75 stamps
Stephen Spark, Soca News, June 24, 2023Royal Mail issues stamps to mark 75th anniversary of Windrush arrival
Susie Beever, Mirror, June 16, 2023Royal Mail issues stamps to mark 75th anniversary of Windrush arrival
Mabel Banfield-Nwachi, The Guardian, June 15, 2023Windrush stamps unveiled
The Voice, June 15, 2023Emma Prempeh, the artist who paints women with a gilt edge
Heni, June 1, 2023The Artists Trending This May
Artsy, May 26, 2023Women Artists of Color: A Curated Tour by Terence Trouillot
Frieze, May 21, 2023Lots to Love at Frieze New York 2023
J. Scott Orr, WHITE HOT MAGAZINE, May 19, 2023Frieze New York 2023 opening day: what went down
Jessica Klingelfuss, Wallpaper, May 18, 2023The 10 Best Booths At Frieze New York 2023
Arun Kakar and Josie Thaddeus-Johns, Artsy, May 18, 2023Between Continents, Emma Prempeh Is Making a Home
Chloe Schama, Vogue, May 17, 20234 Veteran Art Advisors (and New Yorkers) on How To Navigate Frieze New York
Cultured, May 12, 2023Paintings from $10k to $1m at Frieze New York 2023
Frieze, May 11, 2023The Best Booths at Frieze New York 2023, From a Jack Whitten Tribute to a Lament for Roe v. Wade’s Overturning
Maximiliano Duron, Artnews, May 7, 2023Around the galleries – Frieze New York thinks globally and locally
Samuel Reilly, APOLLO, April 27, 2023FRIEZE NEW YORK 2023 FULL LINE-UP REVEALED
Mark Westall, FAD magazine, April 27, 2023Five Emerging Artists Exploring Heritage and Environment at Frieze New York 2023
Frieze, March 24, 20232023 Spring Programme at No.9 Cork Street
Frieze, March 8, 2023March Exhibitions at No.9 Cork Street
Frieze, February 27, 2023The Boom in West African Art Enlivened Nigeria’s Art X Lagos Fair—But Economic Worries Ran Below the Surface
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Artnet News, November 9, 2022Engaging Emma Prempeh’s Sombre Vignettes of Memories
Okechukwu Uwaezuoke, This Day Live, September 12, 2022Prempeh In You Were, You Are, And You Always Will Be
Gregory Austin Nwakunor, The Guardian, September 11, 2022Prempeh paints a picture of present, past
Ozolua Uhakeme, The Nation, September 7, 2022Latest News In Black Art: Alteronce Gumby Joins Nicola Vassel Gallery, Lubaina Himid Wins Major Art Prize, Historic Boar
Victoria L. Valentine, Culture type, August 16, 2022
Exhibitions
Emma Prempeh
Belonging In-Between6 Mar - 24 May 2025LagosTiwani Contemporary Lagos is proud to start its 2025 exhibition programme with the solo show, Emma Prempeh: Belonging In-Between. This suite of paintings continues the latest body of works which...Read moreEmma Prempeh
Wandering Under a Shifting Sun4 Oct - 16 Nov 2024Tiwani Contemporary is proud to feature the first of two solo presentations (the second in Lagos early 2025) by Emma Prempeh where pictorially she considers for the first time, landscape,...Read moreIn the Blood
Rita Alaoui, Virginia Chihota, Miranda Forrester, Heloisa Hariadne, Joy Labinjo, Claude Lawrence, Tessa Mars, Amanda Mushate, Emma Prempeh27 Jun - 14 Sep 2024Our group show, In the Blood , features represented, and associate artists inspired and committed to painting. This exhibition is a review of their approaches defining their representations of life...Read moreAbigail Lucien & Emma Prempeh
With Tenderness3 Mar - 1 Apr 2023Location: Gallery 1, Frieze, No.9 Cork Street London, W1S 3LL Please join us for the opening event: Thursday 9 March | 6 pm - 8 pm Tiwani Contemporary is delighted...Read moreEmma Prempeh
You were, you are, and you always will be10 Sep - 22 Oct 2022TIWANI CONTEMPORARY LAGOS 13 Elsie Femi Pearse Street Victoria Island Lagos, Nigeria Opening times: Tue - Sat: 10am - 6pm and by appointment ' You were, you are, and you...Read more
