LAB #C
Wunika Mukan Gallery is delighted to present its group exhibition for the 16th edition of FNB Art Joburg. The exhibition brings together works of four contemporary artists: London-based artist Adolphus Washington, Nigerian artist Chinezim Moghalu, US-based artist Erin LeAnn Mitchell, and Nigerian-American artist Nkechi Ebubedike. Through this diverse selection of artists, the gallery aims to engage multicultural dialogues within the creative sphere of FNB Art Joburg 2023. The exhibition highlights the gallery's role in uniting the contemporary art world by showcasing artists from different cultural backgrounds, age ranges, and educational foundations.
The booth features three recent works by Nigerian-American artist Nkechi Ebubedike, known for her experimentations with the distortion and suspension of meaningful, culturally significant images. Her works, rooted in personal archives, incorporates painting, alongside archival photographs and found objects into collages and sculptures. These pieces offer critiques on the roles assigned to women in the African Diaspora. Nkechi’s continuous practice maintain a thoughtful and sometimes playful material connection between her elaborated themes and techniques.
Adolphus Washington, based in London, creates primarily collages, considering it to be the most democratic medium that beautifully captures the improvisatory nature of Black American culture. His creations showcase the richness of Black American culture by depicting historical events, as well as the reimagining of these. His work focuses on and champions nuance, confronting his audience with the thorny and complex issues related to descendants of US chattel slavery. Considering his work to have an advocacy component, he intends for them to spark conversation, interest in deeper learning, and ultimately, action toward reparative justice for his people.
Nigerian artist Chinezim Moghalu's expressionistic, vibrant, and minimalist paintings explore a wide spectrum of themes arising from the human condition. He creates paintings that systematically examines relationship complexity, class, religious tendencies, and the mind as a landscape of possibilities with a focus on his familiar environment. Chinezim's emotionally charged renderings cast his subjects in a powerful light, and he also delves into investigating gender preferences and their connection to personal interests and the broader human experience.
The show also presents a unique mixed media piece by UK-based artist Erin LeAnn Mitchell. Influenced by the works of Faith Ringgold and Kerry James Marshall, her works are a mixture of textiles, painting and collage. Mitchell is inspired by narratives of southern Blackness and afrofuturism. By centering the black futures, she seeks to propel Black people into a space and time that enables them to live authentically free. As a continuum of those who came before and those who will come after, she delivers messages of a brighter future in the Black experience.
By presenting this group exhibition to the diverse audience of Johannesburg, Wunika Mukan Gallery aims to strengthen dialogue between viewers and artists about enduring questions of identity and difference. Participation in FNB Art Joburg 2023 provides a platform for communal discovery of freedom and emotions, as well as opportunities for diversity and lasting relationships between artists and audiences.
