
Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
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£8,000 - £12,000
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Head of Department
Having begun to paint as a form of therapy during his posting with the British army, Adjani Okpu-Egbe was granted his first solo show at the military base of Abingdon in Oxfordshire in 2008. Following this, he became one of a select few commissioned to display at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Okpu-Egbe was motivated by the opportunity to travel and by his curiosity to explore his activist theories abroad in order to learn more about the human response in differing societies. The artist has garnered great acclaim and recognition. His first solo show in New York, On Delegitimization and Solidarity: Sisiku AyukTabe, the Martin Luther King Jr. of Ambazonia, the Nera 10, and the Myth of Violent Africa, for the International Studio & Curatorial Program was regarded by Hyperallergic as one of the ten best shows of 2021 in New York. Okpu-Egbe gained the five-month residency as part of receiving the Ritzau Art Prize.
Coming from a largely apolitical yet highly charitable family and upbringing in Cameroon, the artist had studied archaeology and the history of political thought; subjects that can both be seen theoretically reflected in his abstracted artworks. Okpu-Egbe translates events and moments of his life philosophically to present abstracted works such as the present lot. Heavy in symbolic references, a concurrent theme in the artist's oeuvre is his depiction of "Mannimals", distorted and surreal figurative beings that represent his themes of oppression and freedom and act as a narrative of the human condition.
Please note: Adjani Okpu–Egbe is a 2023 recipient of the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship at the Royal College of Art, where he is currently an MA Scholar in Contemporary Art Practice — 2023/24.