Founded in 1979, the gallery exhibits contemporary artists from around the world. For over 35 years October Gallery has been a pioneer in the development of the Trans-avant-garde movement. October Gallery has played a crucial role in focusing world attention on contemporary art from Nigeria, and more widely from Africa and its diaspora.
Frantz Lamothe (Born 1961, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Lives and works in Paris, France)
Frantz Lamothe’s raw and visceral paintings reflect fragments of his varied past. Born in Haiti in 1961, he left at the age of four and spent his childhood in Brooklyn, and by the age of sixteen was living on the streets and painting graffiti in the subways of New York. This way of life came to an end when, along with fellow graffiti artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lamothe was taken up by the New York gallery circuit. After the death of Basquiat, he returned to Haiti and combined his original anarchic street style with the vibrant colours of the Caribbean, and the sacred diagrams of Vodou. His work garnered international acclaim and has been shown across Europe, Japan, and the USA. Through all this turbulent history, his work continues to reflect a wild and brutally honest vision of the world.
Lonely Child
2011
130 x 150 cm
Acrylic paint on canvas
Courtesy Frantz Lamothe and October Gallery, London
Nnenna Okore (Born in 1975 in Australia, raised mainly in Nsukka, Nigeria. Lives and works in Nigeria and Chicago, USA)
Nnenna Okore’s intricate works contain rich textures and reveal extraordinary manifestations of colour and formations, often resembling organic elements in nature, such as roots, veins, and flora. Each visceral sculpture is created through various repetitive and labour-intensive processes, like teasing, twisting, dyeing, and sewing, applied to natural materials such as cheesecloth, burlap and paper. Her works explore the exquisite qualities of detailed surfaces and the surprisingly dramatic exuberance of organic formations.
Alexis Peskine has explored new ways of making that challenge his practice, in his recent artist residencies in Cameroon and Italy, he has worked with new materials and forms including clay and sliced tree trunks. Peskine focuses on questions of identity. His works address questions of the Black Experience and reference the Congolese wooden effigies/Power figures ‘Minkisi’. Nails, in both ancient and contemporary African cultures, are associated with objects of prodigious symbolic and spiritual power. The intricate nature of the Black Experience around the world is what drives Peskine to travel and constantly engage in artistic reflections. His work has been featured in many print publications, including books as well as the New York Times, Le Monde, O Correio da Bahia and Libération.
70 x 51 cm
Coffee infused ink, screen printed on handmade Khadi Bhutanese Tsasho paper (100 gsm) with gold leaf
Edition of 25
Courtesy Alexis Peskine and October Gallery, London.
70 x 51 cm
Coffee infused ink, screen printed on handmade Khadi Bhutanese Tsasho paper (100 gsm) with gold leaf
Edition of 25
Courtesy Alexis Peskine and October Gallery, London.
Benji Reid (Born 1966, Manchester, UK. Lives and works in Manchester, UK)
Benji Reid considers himself a Choreo-Photolist; a term he coined himself to encapsulate his unique practice where theatricality, choreography and photography meet in the image. In incredible, anti-gravitational poses using a medley of props, he draws the audience into a different dimension. Whether exploring life as an outsider, issues surrounding mental health or the complexities of fatherhood, Reid invites the audience into the discussion. His works have been shown in MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts), New York, as part of the 2019 exhibition Styles of Resistance: From the Corner to the Catwalk. He was shortlisted for the Wellcome Photography Prize 2020
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