Art X Lagos

 

For Art X Lagos 2022, Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to present a group presentation featuring the works of artists Miranda Forrester, Troy Makaza, Samuel Nnorom, Charmaine Watkiss and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. 

 

Miranda Forrester (UK) ‘s presentation includes works from the ongoing series Abode, in which she explores themes of home, sexuality and fluidity.Forrester also addresses the invisibility of black women in the western history of art. She investigates how painting is able to re-articulate the language and history of life drawing through a queer Black feminist and desiring lens. In doing so, she depicts what the male gaze may not be able to see. Forrester says: “My work is a celebration of women’s bodies, the joy in occupying feminine identities and being in relation with one another.”

 

Troy Makaza (ZW)’s long-standing interest in painting, form and texture brought him to develop his own hybrid medium, silicone, a material that can be painted as well as cast, woven and tied. In the course of his career, Makaza has utilised his work – that aligns with traditional modes of weaving and tapestry - to address political, historical and power issues that he finds compelling as a young Zimbabwean.

Samuel Nnorom (NI)’s body of work comprises pieces of Ankara fabric / African wax print fabrics collected from either tailor's debris or cast-off clothes from homes and waste foams from furniture workshops. Through actions like sewing, rolling, tying, stringing, suspending, and cutting, he navigates the boundaries between textiles, painting and sculpture in a poetic rendition. His interest also lies in the social structures that fabrics represent; the bubbles that appear in his work are not only the result of a thorough process of stitching and sewing but also become representative of the social structures that have hold historically. The intent of his work is to engage the viewers in questioning the socio-political structures and the human conditions of their daily lives.

Charmaine Watkiss (UK) is based in London. Her suite of new drawings, Àse (2022) brings Watkiss’ matrilineal deities to Nigeria. These ‘plant warriors’ are the human and spiritual embodiment of medicinal plants and seeds dispersed to the new worlds from West Africa via the transatlantic trade between the 16^th and 19^th centuries. The deities’ journey is a custodial and reparative riteceremoniously reminding what flora was taken.

Michaela Yearwood-Dan (UK) is based in London. Projected and inscribed upon the large-scale paintings, extracts of Yearwood-Dan’s experiences, influences, personal thoughts and questions commingle with abstracted and botanical gestures and marks that border, lead towards and give way to speculative clearings; spaces and gaps that have the capacity to be filled with utopic imaginings. The works remain vested in holding and debating the real-life politics and cultural demands of femme, black and queer individuals in the world coming together as communities, manifesting and nurturing critical, safe and joyous environments. 

 

Recent exhibitions include Our Land Just Like a Dream, Macaal, Marrakech, Morocco (group - 2022); The Company She Keeps, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos (group - 2022); Hard as Nails, Quench Gallery, Margate (group - 2022); At Peace, Gillian Jason Gallery, London (group - 2021); Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London (group - 2021); Sixty- Six London, St George’s Place, London (group - 2021); Reality Check, Guts Gallery, London (group - 2021); Poetic Sustenance,Tiwani Contemporary, London (group - 2021); Abode, Guts Gallery, London (solo - 2020). Other shows in 2020: Every Woman Biennial, Copeland Gallery, London; Top 100 (The Auction Collective), London; When s**t hits the fan again, Guts Gallery (online); Miranda Forrester & Emily Moore, Phoenix Brighton; Narrating Life, Studi0 gallery, St Moritz, Switzerland; Pending, San Mei Gallery, London; Antisocial Isolation, Saatchi Gallery, London; Begin Again, Guts Gallery, Online exhibition raising funds for The Free Black Uni; FBA Futures, Mall Galleries, London. In 2019: PLOP End of residency show, The Koppel Project; Mercurial Matters: The Organic Feminine, Lock-in Gallery, Hove; How did we get here - Decolonising the Curriculum, Brighton University, Brighton. Most recently, Forrester has been the recipient of the Breakthrough Artist Soho House Award.

Recent solo exhibitions include Kufa izuva rimwe, First Floor Gallery, Hararw, Zimbabwe (2022); Instinct of great survivors, Primo Marella Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland (2022); Art Basel Miami Beach, First Floor Gallery, Miami, US (2021); Tomorrows / Today, First Floor Gallery, Cape Town Art Fair, South Africa (2019); Forever Neverland, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe (2018); Bound Together, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe (2016). Recent group exhibitions include, The Territories of Abstraction, N.9 Cork Street, Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris, France (2022); Travels with Herodotus, Gallery Bianconi, Milan, Italy (2021); Mirror Mirror! - South South Veza, First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe (2021); Level Mosi-oa-Tunya, First Floor Gallery, Victoria Falls (2020); Welcome Home, Macaal, Marrakesh, Morocco (2019); Kubatana, Contemporary African Art Survey, Kunstlaboratorium, Norway (2019); THE BLACK SPHINX II, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy (2018); Next Level, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe (2018); ‘Five Bhob’ – Zeitz MoCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2018); Another Antipodes/urban axis, PS Art Space, Fremantle, Australia (2017); Young Now, Hazard Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2017); I am because you are, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe (2016); But He’s Got No Clothes On, Commune 1 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2015); Harare No Limits, Harare International Festival of the Arts, 2015, Harare, Zimbabwe (2015); Kuyaruka – Age of Accountability, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe​.

 

 

Samuel Nnorom lives and works in Nigeria. He hold and MFA in Sculpture, from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and a B.Aed in Sculpture from the University of Jos, Nigeria. Recent exhibitions include Contemporary Renaissance, FAA Departmental Gallery, Plateau, Nigeria (solo – 2022); Recycle Matter, Alexis Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria (group -2022); Matters of Essential, Kó, Lagos, Nigeria (group – 2022); Voices of Textiles, Gallery Marion Chauvy, Paris, France (group – 2022); Wielding Power, At the Landmark, Lagos, Nigeria (group – 2021); Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria (group – 2021); One Environment, Ceddi Plaza, Abuja, Nigeria (group – 2019); Africa Art resource Centre Exhibition, National Museum Onikan, Lagos, Nigeria (group – 2016).

 

Charmaine Watkiss lives and works in London. She holds a MA in Drawing, from UAL Wimbledon College of Art (2018). Recent exhibitions include The Wisdom Tree, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK (2022); The Company She Keeps, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (2022); Drawing attention: emerging British artists, The British Museum, London (2022); Womxn Of Colour Art Award 2020-2021 Exhibition: Altitude, 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London (2022); The Seed Keepers, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2021); RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021); To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven Libraries, Belgium (2021); Breakfast Under The Tree, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate (2021); Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery (2020); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2019), Wimbledon College of Art MA Degree Show (2018); Against Static (Curated by Tania Kovats), Wimbledon Space (2018).

 

 

Michaela Yearwood-Dan lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include Let me Hold You, Queer Circle, London, UK (solo - 2022); The Sweetest Taboo, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2022); Laced, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK (group - 2021); Summer exhibition, Royal Academy, London, UK (group- 2021); Be Gentle With Me, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (solo - 2021); Ancient Deities, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (group - 2020); Clay TM, TJ Boulting, London, UK (group - 2020); The Green Fuse, Frestonian Gallery, London, UK (group -2020); No Time Like the Present, Public Gallery, London, UK, (group - 2020); Begin Again, Guts Gallery, London, UK, (group - 2020); After Euphoria, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2019) and One English Pound, Sarabande, The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation (solo - 2019).