Artists we spotlighted this year on Omenai Insider (I)

In our bi-weekly newsletter, Omenai Insider, we focused on artists who caught our attention. Our focus was on artists of African origin living on the continent and in the diaspora. The artists, both emerging and established, on this list were chosen based on their practice and the impact that they had this year through awards, exhibitions, auctions, and art fairs. Working across different mediums, these artists are consumed with an urgent need for documentation, experimentation, and artistic expression. These are artists you should know. 

1. Simphiwe Ndzube

Simphiwe Ndzube (b. 1990) is from the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Growing up in post-apartheid Cape Town, the artist is driven to represent the underrepresented individuals who exist within oppressive systems — those who go unheard.  His work is characterized by a fundamental interaction between media, objects, and two-dimensional surfaces which creates a subjective narrative of the Black experience in past and present-day South Africa from a mythological perspective. Ndzube’s work has been collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon, France; Iziko South African National Gallery, South Africa; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, South Africa; Rubell Museum, and many others.  

2. Alimi Adewale

Alimi Adewale (b. 1974) is a Nigerian artist whose practice revolves around exploring African heritage, identity, and the human experience. In his exploration of painting and sculpting as a medium, he invites viewers to connect with Africa’s past, present, and future as he highlights urban issues and the lives of everyday people in cities. With his art, he strives to foster dialogue and cultural exchange as he celebrates the beauty and resilience of the African spirit, and the interconnectedness of humanity. Adewale’s works have been exhibited at Anima Gallery Doha, Belvedere Artspace Beirut, Galleri Astley Uttersberg, and ODA Art Gallery. He has also been featured in art fairs around the world with Nil Gallery Paris. 

3. Moyosore Jolaolu

Moyosore Jolaolu (b. 1993) is a Nigerian artist whose paintings exude a profound sense of emotion and introspection. His work is largely autobiographical as they are mostly self-portraits, portraits of others and serene depictions of his acquaintances and surroundings. Although Jolaolu’s art pays attention to the social interactions between people at different moments of their lives, he is more focused on celebrating the strength and beauty of human nature. Jolaolu’s works have been shown in various exhibitions such as the National Museum Onikan in Lagos, Nigeria, AMG Projects Gallery and Soto Gallery. 

4. Osaru Obaseki

Osaru Obaseki (b.1993) is a Nigerian multi-disciplinary visual artist whose works explore themes of materiality, history, cultural identity, societal realities, colonialism, and post-colonialism. From fluid painting to bronze sculpture and acrylic-infused sands, such as black sand harvested from Igun Street, white sand from the seabed, and the Benin red earth, Obaseki is using a variety of mediums to synergize ancient and modern civilizations. As a descendant of a historic family in the Benin Kingdom, Osaru Obaseki’s work springs from her rich cultural heritage and experiences. She is taking the long-standing history of bronze casting and its methodology of the lost wax method in creating contemporary forms.

5. Tofo Bardi

Tofo Bardi (b. 2001) explores the liminal space of the human consciousness. Her work focuses on states of altered consciousness, rites of passage, and the representation of the intangible, blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Bardi’s practice is informed by her personal experiences with fear and loss. In her paintings, ghost-like figures take centre stage. These ethereal figures interact and engage with one another, inhabiting a realm entirely their own. She is a graduate of the University of Benin, where she specialized in painting, and currently lives and works in Lagos.

6. Amina Kadous

Amina Kadous (b. 1991) is a visual artist based in Cairo, Egypt. Her work tackles the concepts of memory and identity. She believes in the ephemerality of experience and that a photograph is an object that holds memories and meanings. Kadous explores the notion of personal and collective memory through photographs of a changing Egypt. She is driven by the spirit of inquiry as she seeks to comprehend the meanings and hidden ambiguities of lives, not her own, through the interactive nature of the viewer, photographer, object, and environment.

7. Kwaku Osei Owusu Achim

Kwaku Osei Owusu Achim (b. 1991) is an emerging conceptual contemporary artist based in Accra, Ghana. His work focuses on the intersection between how we see ourselves in the world and how our surroundings see us. During his one year of volunteering experience as an assistant in the medical field at St. John of God Hospital and New Horizon, he taught art to children with autism. He was inspired by how they communicated with their hands. He is inspired by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Egon Schiele, and Salvador Dali. 

8. Remi Ajani

Remi Ajani (b. 1984) is a London-based artist. Her work deals with colour and gesture and is deeply connected to identity, mythology and collective experience. Inspired by her interest in phenomenology, she investigates how to make a work that allows viewers to connect with a shared emotional space. Starting with found/ personal imagery she explores how she might use it to communicate emotional context through the dialogue with and of the body. Her curiosity means her practice oscillates between figuration and abstraction exploring her relationship to the world in relation to perception, reality, connection and disconnection.

9. Leilah Babirye

Born in Uganda, Leilah Babirye (b. 1985) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work includes large-scale ceramics, wooden sculptures, African masks, drawings, and paintings on paper. Her practice, which explores the intricate intersections of identity, sexuality, and human rights, involves the use of debris collected from the streets of New York. Babirye’s reason for using discarded materials in her work is intentional and as a protest to Ugandan culture. In the Luganda language, a gay person is regarded as ‘abasiyazi’, meaning ‘sugarcane husk’ which is said to be “rubbish” as it is the part of the sugarcane you throw out. Babirye also frequently uses traditional African masks to explore the diversity of LGBTQI identities, assembling them from ceramics, metal and hand-carved wood; lustrous, painterly glazes are juxtaposed with chiselled, roughly-textured woodwork and metal objects associated with the art of blacksmithing.

10. Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (b. 1980) was born in Mochudi, Botswana. In her drawings, paintings, installations, and animations, Sunstrum refers to mythology, ethnography, ecology, and quantum physics, among others. With influences from literature, cinema, theatre, and other forms of storytelling, Sunstrum is building a continuously growing story. Through a shadowy ‘cast’ of characters and alter egos, she explores elusive, but universal thoughts about being yourself and belonging; the feeling of belonging somewhere. Sunstrum places these figures in indefinable environments that appear both archaic and futuristic. Her work includes imagery that reflects the diverse genealogies of her experience living in different parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. as well as ongoing research in ethnography, ecology, and quantum physics. The artist’s boundary-crossing practice centers Black female identity in the discourse of postcolonialism and neocolonialism, highlighting the contributions of overlooked historical figures while emphasizing modes of knowledge and communication beyond the status quo.

Read and subscribe to the Omenai Insider to catch the latest African art news and artists’ spotlights.