Until December 14th, you can visit the exhibition I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise, at  Tiwani Contemporary, London.

The exhibition brings together the artists Ndideka Akunyili and Simone Leigh.

Through her sculptures, Simone Leigh revisits  symbols such as the African shells, named cowries, which have an another function in African societies like a mean of payment  or divinatory items. The poetry of her artistic approach confers a lyrical power  on the different pieces.

I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise – exhibition view, Courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary

Ethiopian girl
credits : Hans Sylvester

Picture from New African Culture Facebook Page

Indeed the similarity between this picture of an Ethiopian girl and the Simone Leigh’s sculpture is striking. She transcribes again through  the sculpture the ethnic and cultural traditions of a people.  The technic details through the external rolled materials or porcelain face, take the works back to reality: they are the border between the artist’s creativity and the visitor’s understanding.

 I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise – exhibition view, Courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary

I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise – exhibition view, Courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary

Njideka Akunyili uses the collage technic. Inserting personal elements into her painting, the artist is telling us her own illustrated stories, putting herself in a drawing performance. Through full-size pieces of her comic strip Akunyili brings us into her intimacy.

I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise – exhibition view, Courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary

The two artists deal with the object of the border. In Njideka Akunyili‘s works, the border between the  intimate and public spaces are separated  through the paper,  at a time that we are witnesses of gained power by the images in the society, today.

Simone Leigh explores aesthetically the boundary between contemporary art and handcraft.

Virginie Echene

En +:

http://www.tiwani.co.uk/current-exhibition/images/36/i-always-face-you-even-when-it-seems-otherwise/