Tiwani Contemporary

04/12/2023

Happy Birthday to our incredible gallery artist Joy Labinjo ! 🎉 In celebration of her special day we’re taking  a closer look at her mesmerising 'Self Portrait’ (2023). 

Labinjo works between the realms of abstraction and realism, utilising loose geometric color blocks to sculpt a striking self-portrait. The composition, with its muted background and the artist’s direct gaze, embodies a loving meditation on the unfiltered and everyday, reminding us of the power and vulnerability that comes with self acceptance. 

Joy's large-scale figurative paintings often capture intimate and rare scenes of historical and contemporary Black life, both real and imagined.

Exploring various modes of representation – abstraction, naturalism, flatness, and graphic patterns – Labinjo's 'collage aesthetic' brings together an eclectic visual vocabulary.

This rich tapestry mirrors her experience of multiple identities, growing up Black, British, and Nigerian in the 90s and early 00s.

Here's to the brilliance of Joy Labinjo and the profound narratives she brings to life through her powerful practice!  🎨✨ 

Work shown: 'Self Portrait', 2023 | Oil on Canvas, 80 x 60 cm

📷 photography by: Deniz Guzel

Courtesy of the Artist and Tiwani Contemporary

27/10/2023

Roster artist Mary Evans takes part in a special joint symposium at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town (Zeitz MOCAA) tomorrow, Saturday 28 October.

Held to mark ‘“GILT”, her solo exhibition at Zeitz as well as a 2021 solo exhibition at the institution of work by South African artist Johannes Phokela, the forum brings together the work of the two artists to explore their respective practices by positioning their work in conversation with one another.

“Mary Evans: GILT” reflects on the artist’s oeuvre as a quietly disarming practice that uses the decorative to critique and counter the consumption of Black people and their labour. The exhibition features new works commissioned by Zeitz, site-specific responses informed by a period of research and exploration of Cape Town and, by extension, South Africa.

The symposium will conclude with the launch of new monographs on both artists. Head to our website for more details, 🔗 link in bio.

Saturday, 28 October, 10 am - 5 pm
Zeitz MOCAA, Level 6, Mountain Side
Cape Town, South Africa

“Mary Evans: GILT” is open until 19 November 2023.





📷 Portrait of Mary Evans by Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
📷️ “Mary Evans: GILT”, 2023, installation view. Photograph by Dillon Marsh. Courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA and the artist.

27/10/2023

Roster artist Mary Evans takes part in a special joint symposium at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town (Zeitz MOCAA) tomorrow, Saturday 28 October.

Held to mark ‘“GILT”, her solo exhibition at Zeitz as well as a 2021 solo exhibition at the institution of work by South African artist Johannes Phokela, the forum brings together the work of the two artists to explore their respective practices by positioning their work in conversation with one another.

“Mary Evans: GILT” reflects on the artist’s oeuvre as a quietly disarming practice that uses the decorative to critique and counter the consumption of Black people and their labour. The exhibition features new works commissioned by Zeitz, site-specific responses informed by a period of research and exploration of Cape Town and, by extension, South Africa.
The symposium will conclude with the launch of new monographs on both artists. Head to our website for more details, 🔗 link in bio.

Saturday, 28 October, 10 am - 5 pm
Zeitz MOCAA, Level 6, Mountain Side
Cape Town, South Africa

“Mary Evans: GILT” is open until 19 November 2023.






📷 Portrait of Mary Evans by Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
📷️ “Mary Evans: GILT”, 2023, installation view. Photograph by Dillon Marsh. Courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA and the artist.

20/10/2023

“lalala ha!”, Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s solos exhibition continues at our Lagos gallery. Conceptualised as a series of changing vignettes accompanied by a programme of performance, the works ebb, flow and accumulate in the space over time. In the words of for , “Whilst viewers might appreciate the work from afar, they won’t see it for what it really is until they step closer to trace the intricate details.”

Functioning as a kind of memoir, “lalala ha!” embodies ways of being and moving in the city of Lagos where the artist has primarily lived and worked for the past decade. Ogunji says:

“I am deeply interested in how our creative work as artists embodies the forms and poetics of Lagos: the stops and starts of moving through traffic; the choreography of the market; the deep red earth; water all around us; the return of electricity signalled by a fan turning on…A painting moves up the wall with a pulley…We pass images and the images pass us.”

Visit the website to read more about the exhibition and Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s practice, and head to Elephant.art to read Desmond Vincent’s interview with the artist - 🔗 links in bio.



TIWANI CONTEMPORARY⁠
13 Elsie Femi Pearse Street⁠
Victoria Island⁠
Lagos, Nigeria⁠

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📷 1: Wura-Natasha Ogunji, ‘body as camera’, 2023. Thread, ink on tracing paper, 61 x 61 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
📷 2: Wura-Natasha Ogunji, lalala ha!, installation view, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, 16 September - 5 November 2023. Photograph by Olayinka Eno Babalola .sunsets showing ‘Phantom Painting’, 2022. Thread, oil, spray paint, hand-made cord on linen, 215.9 x 205.7 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.

08/06/2023

Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to announce its move to a new gallery space at 24 Cork Street, Mayfair, London. This move, alongside establishing and opening a Lagos gallery space in 2022, represents a significant milestone for Tiwani Contemporary and foregrounds the Gallery’s plans for the next ten years and beyond. Cork Street Galleries, an initiative of The Pollen Estate, is delighted to welcome Tiwani Contemporary as the final permanent gallery to sign on Cork Street, marking a new chapter in Cork Street’s history and heralding a new era for modern and contemporary art in London.

Designed by Matheson Whiteley architectural studio (London), with interiors and furnishings by designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello (Lagos), the gallery will be located on the ground floor corner of Burlington Gate, a recently completed mixed-use building by renowned architect Richard Rogers.

Founded in 2011 by Maria Varnava, Tiwani Contemporary’s primary mission is to represent artists from Africa and its global diaspora. Maria Varnava said:

“Tiwani Contemporary is a global leader in the representation of visual arts practice from contemporary Africa and its diaspora, and the Cork Street premises are a signal of our continuous commitment, intent and ambition for the artists we represent and exhibit. Together our galleries will be a bridge between the African continent and its international global diaspora, allowing us to programme and exhibit art by our represented and exhibited artists on a larger scale, both literally and metaphorically.”

The gallery will inaugurate the new space in autumn 2023 with events, and solo exhibitions by Joy Labinjo and Miranda Forrester, both of whom will present new paintings centred around portraiture and domesticity.

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17/02/2023

FORTHCOMING | Tiwani Contemporary is proud to present Joy Yamusangie’s first solo show, “Remember Me.” Yamusangie's new paintings, vignette moments and events where the sentiment ‘remember me’ might arise and be expressed in a moment of euphoria, vulnerability or sadness.

How do these events shape and colour our impressions and recollections of past lovers, friends and those we were once close to? What happens when memories fade and what efforts do we take to create a legacy and permanence within our personal and cultural histories.

🔗 Follow the link in bio for more info.

TIWANI CONTEMPORARY
Gallery 6
Cromwell Place
4 Cromwell Place
London, SW7 2JE

Please join us for the
opening event:

Tuesday 14 March | 5 pm - 8 pm



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⁠📷️ Joy Yamusangie, Two Faced Boot!, 2023, acrylic and oil bars on canvas, 182.5 x 155 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.

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17/02/2023

FORTHCOMING | Tiwani Contemporary is delighted to announce the dual presentation "With Tenderness", featuring gallery artist Emma Prempeh and introducing Haitian-American artist Abigail Lucien in their first UK show.

The exhibition probes how, in painting and sculptural installations, both artists render compelling explorations of time, in all its tenses: as archival matter, quotidian event and speculative futurity.

🔗 Follow the link in bio for more info.

TIWANI CONTEMPORARY
Gallery 1
Frieze, No.9 Cork Street
London, W1S 3LL

Please join us for the
opening event:

Thursday 9 March | 6 pm - 8 pm


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⁠📷️ Emma Prempeh, "Another Limb", 2023, oil, acrylic and imitation gold leaf on canvas with projection, 200 x 160 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.

📷️ Abigail Lucien, "Boule de fwa II", 2022, acrylic and vinyl on steel, 22.9 x 1.9 x 3.8 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Deli Gallery, New York.

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17/01/2023

NOW OPEN | Virginia Chihota | 17th January 2023

Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa
(The womb refused to be told)

CROMWELL PLACE
Gallery 6
4 Cromwell Pl.
London, SW7 2JE

We are delighted to launch our 2023 exhibition programme this evening with gallery artist Virginia Chihota's 2022 series, Chibereko Chakaramba Kuudzirwa (The Womb Refused To Be Told), 2022.

These large-scale, mural-eque serigraphic works are a palimpsest of drawn, printed and densely layered compositions. Weaving together the realms of her subconscious and lived reality, the works express how one might find the spiritual energy to break damaging psychological cycles to create, instead, hopeful and generative ones to live and thrive by.
 
Four of the series of nine works are on display at Cromwell Place, with the complete series available to view online.

We are delighted that the artist joins us in person tonight at 4 Cromwell Place to inaugurate the show.

CROMWELL PLACE
Viewing Room 3 & 4
4 Cromwell Pl.
London, SW7 2JE

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📷 installation view of ‘Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa
(The womb refused to be told)’, Cromwell Place, 17 January - 11 February. Photography by Deniz Guzel, courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.

04/01/2023

Gallery artist has been included in latest project at Northside House, a medium secure mental health unit in Norwich.
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Artists France-Lise McGurn, Michael Yearwood-Dan, John Booth and Michael O'Reilly collaborated with service users and staff to completely transform an old workshop into a creative hub where the unit community can meet, make art, read and perform.

In collaboration with and the trust, the space opened on the 15th December 2022.

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📷 Installation view. Courtesy of the artists and Hospital Rooms. Photo credit: Damian Griffiths.