Photo London opened with a range of exhibitors including Black-owned galleries as well as independent galleries that support Black art, artists and creative talents in photography. ALT has complied a guide to this much anticipated event..
Photo London brings the finest international photography to the British capital every year. The Fair presents the best historic and vintage works while also spotlighting fresh perspectives in photography. Along with a selection of the world’s leading photography dealers and galleries, Photo London’s Discovery section is dedicated to the most exciting emerging galleries and artists. In addition, each edition sees a unique Public Programme including special exhibitions and installations; a Talks Programme curated by William A. Ewing, former Director of the Musée de l’Elysée, and former Director of Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York; and several Awards announced, headlined by the Photo London Master of Photography Award. For tickets click here.
AFIKARIS
“Our vision is to become a reference gallery for contemporary artists from Africa and African diaspora.”
AFIKARIS is a young contemporary art gallery created in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, promoting emerging artists whom Africa has been influencing life and work.
The gallery showcases works by artists from Africa and its diaspora and mainly aims to provide their works with international visibility through exhibitions, art fairs and through collaborations with cultural institutions.
The gallery aims to be a place for exchange and dialogue, engaging in conversation with the public. AFIKARIS gives voices to its artists on topical issues as well as subjects at the heart of their art. It is also a space for reflection about the African contemporary art scene.
The gallery highlights both emerging and well renowned talents.
The gallery, which is located in Paris (38 rue Quincampoix, 75004), is active all around the world via international fairs and travelling exhibitions.
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DADA Gallery
DADA Gallery champions artists whose practice reflects the times and develops new ways in which art can speak truth to power.
The gallery has earned a reputation for introducing the most exciting emerging artists from Africa and its diaspora to international audiences. DADA Gallery is committed to promoting artists exploring wide ranging themes such as youth, identity, sexuality, cultural and socio-economic issues.
The gallery was founded in 2015 as an online journal that merged politics and art. It has since evolved and shifted its focus to exploring innovative and immersive ways to invite audiences to engage with its roster of young vibrant artists.
DADA Gallery presents exhibitions in its physical spaces in London and Lagos while continuing to maintain a strong digital presence with its online exhibitions.
See all artists past exhibited artists and the current/upcoming exhibitions here.
(DANIEL OBASI | Corridors of Power 3 2022 DANIEL OBASI | Corridors of Power 2 2022)
193 Gallery
The 193 gallery was born in 2018 out of a consuming passion for art, travel and discovery. Its artists and team offer several invitations to travel around the world of contemporary art.
Through its programming, 193 Gallery offers true experiences in the colours of cultures and countries from around the world. Refusing clichés, 193 Gallery’s team crosses borders to meet local art scenes. The team of curators, working in themes, selects promising or established colourful artists.
In the past 2 years, the gallery has presented photographers from Chile, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Puerto Rico, China, Yemen or Kenya.
“Our mission is to help you discover the diversity of the contemporary art world through Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, Oceania and many others.”
HOXTON MINI PRESS
Hoxton Mini Press is an indie publisher from East London making collectable photography books. Their goal is to bring photobooks to a wider audience… and make them so beautiful you’ll keep them for your grandchildren.
In an age when everything is virtual, the book as an object is more important than ever. But all too often big art books are aloof and expensive. Hoxton Mini Press want to make books that both the collector and the non-specialist can enjoy – and that everyone can afford.
See all the photography works from Black artists here.
Most of their books are about East London – but gradually are broadening out to other areas and topics, but always with an eye on the urban and niche.
BLACK BOX PUBLISHING
Black Box Publishing, also known as Foto | Black Box, is a form of creative think tank focused on the medium of photography and its relationship to the notion of the narrative.
With a particular focus on photographers from Africa, Foto | Black Box functions effectively as a ‘journey’ recorder – i.e ‘black box’, tracking both the visual and conceptual pathways associated with the medium and making of photographs.
Committed to excellence it is our aim to present photo projects and related books that are both singularly aesthetic and conceptually engaging.
See the all the photography work here.
NIL GALLERY
Nil Gallery is a contemporary art gallery/art residency located in le Marais district in Paris.
It was founded in 2016 by Hugo and Paul, respectively 31 and 30 years old.
Since its creation, the co-founders aimed at giving an international dimension to the gallery by attending and organizing numerous exhibitions all over the world (America, Asia, Africa and Europe).
The gallery has a non-exclusive but very intimate relation with artists from Western Africa.
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Photographers in the era of Instagram, Prince Gyasi initiated the phonography movement while Lou Escobar and Ismail Zaidy embody a generation of artists emancipated from the traditional channels of the art market. The three of them have very singular universes, adopting colours as vibrant as they are contrasting.
Gyasi uses colours synthetically, believing that colour therapy is possible through his dreamlike works. Lou Escobar combines retro hues to produce a Tarantino effect in her photographs. Through his pastel and poetic photographs, Ismail Zaidy aims primarily at expressing his feelings, which are the core of his works.
Characters are central to those three artists; Escobar portrays the plurality of bodies, ages, and the inherent strength of each woman through her protagonists, while Gyasi depicts the energy of his generation, freed from old beliefs about sexuality, race, and traditional social norms.
See all represented photographers and art fairs here.
Artist: Prince Gyasi
Prince Gyasi (Nyantakyi) is a 23 years old Ghanaian creative and visual artist. Prince creates images that are bold, hopeful, and tell the stories of marginalized individuals who are often pushed aside in society. Most of his images are created in his hometown of Accra, using the surrounding landscapes and community as his muse.
Each hyper colourful print reveals fundamental human emotions that are tied in with a person’s life, such as fatherhood, motherhood or childhood. Using his iPhone, Prince captures both resiliency and strength through his striking silhouettes placed against brightly altered landscapes and vivid backgrounds.
His art showcases the nobility and grace of black skin, offering viewers a counter-narrative to dominant notions of beauty.
Using his cellphone, Price Gyasi breaks artistic conventions and questions the elitism found in art. Having an immense amount of talent, drive and inspiration from his early beginnings in photography, he realized he could use his phone as a serious creation tool and as a means of expression.
Artist: Natnael Ashebir
Natnael Ashebir (b. 1995, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, digital art, and photography.
The core of his artistic practice is drawn from politics, social structure, the process of urbanization, and abstraction of the individual experience.
Artist: John Madu
Natnael received a BFA from Alle school of fine art and design this year. His work has been exhibited in Ethiopia and Kenya. He currently lives and works in Ethiopia.
John Madu was born in 1983 in Lagos where he still lives and works.
With a B.sc in policy and strategic studies, John Madu is a self-taught artist. He knows how to embrace his individual style, with a wide array of mediums such as acrylic paint, oil paint, spray paint, ink, burlap and collage.
John Madu is a multi-disciplinary, best known for his figurative symbolic style of paintings, usually along the lines of the complexity of identity, social behaviour and the effects of cultural globalisation on individualism. His work can be described as eclectic because of how he derives ideas, from a various range of influences and sources based on popular culture, African history, art history and personal experiences. Symbolism is usually evident in his work, with reoccurring iconography such as books, apples, and other recognisable items which convey a certain meaning in art, and act as metaphors to a subject.
John’s source of inspiration is from a variety of places but can be narrowed down to a few things that inspire a major part of his art works, which could be current situations affecting society, be it political, social or just banal everyday life issues.
Artist: SAÏDOU DICKO
SAÏDOU DICKO was born in Burkina Faso in 1979. A self-taught visual artist ( photographer, videographer, installer and painter). He lives and works in Paris.
Shadows have always inspired Saïdou Dicko’s work. When he was a child, the shadows pushed him to draw. Whilst he was a shepherd, he used to trace the outlines of the bushes, animals and rivers he met. The cross on top of the head of his characters also echo his childhood. That is a wink to the pattern of one fabric from the Peulh tradition.
For him, it is a way to pay a tribute to beauty and to represent the humanity of his characters. To this extent, he turns them into shadows. In his series of painted photographs, The Shadowed People – unique pieces – a combination of different clichés, he covers the subject with black paint. In that way, the beings give their place to their shadow, providing a universal scope to the work.
The life experiences of Saïdou Dicko, between Paris and Burkina Faso, his native culture and his travels, leave their mark on his work with poetry as well as mystery. Since then, his work has been presented at many international events (biennials, international fairs, exhibitions).
His works received several prizes: Prix Blachère in 2006 in Dakar Biennale, Prix de la francophonie at African photography encounter of Bamako in 2007, Fondation Thamgidi prize in 2008 in Dakar and the Off prize of European Union.
(image: Matched with the Can Hold TMS4) (image: Moon Princess Luanda 4 Fleurs)
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