Tiwani Contemporary is hugely excited to present this autumn at 24 Cork Street two incredible debut presentations from Ugonna Hosten and Bunmi Agusto. Both artists centre drawing at the core of their multidisciplinary practices and are evolving episodic narratives featuring the psycho-spiritual encounters of a heroine in their own likeness on a pilgrimage of individuation and self-discovery.
In the upper and lower galleries, Ugonna Hosten (b.1982, Lagos, Nigeria) works across media that includes collage, assemblage and printmaking. She has been engaging a process that she describes as, "broadening and deepening a felt sense of the transpersonal dimension", a spiritual awakening and foundation of a meditative practice that is taking her to new sites within, and uniting different fields of knowledge that includes philosophy, comparative mythologies, analytical psychology (specifically Carl Jung and Fanny Brewster) and Igbo spiritual traditions.
The Song I Once Knew features recent and new intricately detailed drawings, scaled between panoramic and intimately scaled scenarios of ritual, worship, acceptance and transformation. We witness the departures and arrivals of Hosten's heroine on her pilgrimage, accompanied by her divine entity, Ebezina.
Our autumn In Focus presentation in the viewing room, Tales By Moonlight, is by world-builder, Bunmi Agusto (b.1999, Lagos, Nigeria), is a mixed-media installation featuring moving-image, and a sumptuous suite of mid-scale compositions incorporating painting, drawing and printmaking, depicting, Within, Agusto's interior fantasy world, and the domain of her alter-ego, Ó.
In response to night-time African oral traditions of storytelling, Agusto's narrative features on this occasion a theatre set. Ghosts are seen preparing the night sky curtain indigo, referencing the ancient dyeing practices from Northern Nigeria. Cowrie shells are applied to adorn the curtain night sky, as stars. Shape-shifting spirits are seen supporting and transporting materials preparing the curtain.
Agusto's gaze is informed by her upbringing in Lagos, as a woman of Yoruba, Edo and Afro-Brazilian descent. Within is a paracosm, a complex, imaginary world in the artist’s mind that functions as a repository for all that she encounters in her waking life. Within reflects her interiority and the evolution of her selfhood through the lenses of cultural theory, psychology, spirituality and gaming.
About the Artists
Bunmi Agusto is a world-builder (artist, writer, curator and art historian) focused on fantasy and magical storytelling. In her practice, she combines painting, drawing and printmaking to create vibrant compositions of a fantasy world she calls ‘Within’. Within is a paracosm in the artist’s mind that functions as a repository for all that she encounters in her waking life. The figures in her work are often family, friends and passersby pulled from reality and into her world as cross-reality migrants through their encounters with her.
She holds an MFA in Fine Art from Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, an MA in History of Art & Archaeology from SOAS University, London and a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, for which she received distinctions in all three degrees.
Recent Exhibitions include; Clouds Never Die, TAFETA, London (solo - 2025); The Cave, Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, E-Werk, Freiburg (solo - 2025); Dialogue Between Two Clouds, Jnane Tamsna, Marrakech (solo - 2025); Growth of the Soil, Kristin Hjellegerde Gallery, London (group - 2025); TEFAF Maastricht, TAFETA, Maastricht (group - 2025); India Art Fair, kó, Delhi (group - 2025); Lands of the Living, DADA Gallery, London (solo - 2024); Collecting Now, Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Lagos (group - 2024); Untitled Art Fair, kó, Miami ( group - 2024); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, TAFETA, London (group - 2024); Dallas Art Fair, TAFETA, Texas (group - 2024); New Contemporaries, Camden Arts Centre, London (group - 2024); TEFAF, TAFETA, Maastricht (group - 2024); Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit and The Sun, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (group - 2023); New Contemporaries, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (group - 2023); MFA Degree Show, Ruskin School of Art, Oxford (group - 2023); Chasing Spirits, Foreign Agent, Lausanne (group - 2023); Reverie, DADA Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria (group - 2023); baby hair and afros, Vortic Curated, London & Santa Monica Art Museum, Los Angeles, Virtual Reality(group - 2023); Outside, kó, Lagos (solo - 2022); Psychoscape, TAFETA, London (solo - 2022); Escape To Within, DADA Gallery, London (solo - 2021)
Ugonna Hosten lives and works in Kent, UK. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working across media encompassing collage, drawing, assemblage and printmaking. With a particular interest in the nature of the Self, Hosten’s work pulls from vast fields, including philosophy, mythology, depth psychology, alchemy and the ancient spiritual traditions of the Igbos.
Recent Exhibitions include; What I Thought I Knew, curated by Ronan McKenzie, Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London, UK (group - 2024);chi: Altarpieces, Liturgy & Devotion (Drawing attention: emerging artists in dialogue), York Art Gallery, York, UK (2023); Instinctive Travels & The Paths of Rhythm, One Paved Court, London, UK (solo - 2022); Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, UK (group - 2021); Ty Pawb Print International, Wales, UK (group - 2021); Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London, UK (2021), and Humanalia(n), One Paved Court, London, UK (group - 2020)
Since her debut solo exhibition in 2022, Hosten has continued to explore and develop a mythical tale of a female protagonist on a pilgrimage guided by a divine entity.
