ABSA l’Atelier winners unveiled at opening of Refuge: An uncommon home at ABSA Gallery in Johannesburg CBD
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
They have been judged the best visual minds in Africa among the ranks of the young and creative of Africa on the competition by the judges. Viewing their stunning body of works that speaks to the current conditions of existence on the continent and the issues that individually confront us in our daily lives, I could not agree more with the judges’ verdict. During my viewing of the artists’ works on exhibit and chatting to them on Friday, November 18, 2022 at ABSA Gallery in Johannesburg CBD, was a rewarding experience as it assisted in better understanding how and why the create the kind of work they do.
Titled Refuge: An uncommon home, this is a collaborative exhibition by the three 2021 Absa L’Atelier Ambassadors, Ayobola Kekere-Ekun (Nigeria), Michael Jackson Blebo (Ghana) and Adelheid Frackiewicz (South Africa). Ayobola’s work hasn’t been shown in Jo’burg since her 2020 solo and a one-day pop-up last year and those whpo had the privilege to have seen her works so far are impressed. I agreed with them on Friday because this artist seems to potentially have a well rewarding artistic journey ahead of her.
Michael Jackson Blebo (who by the way told me that it is actually his real name, sharing the same name with the late famous and eccentric pop star Michael Jackson) uses earth as his material. The artist creates thee beautiful patterns on canvas that also have mirrors as part of the works.
“”I did my research by leaving the city to into the rural areas of Ghana where I found out that the rural folk use earth to build strong houses. I adopted that technique and use wax as well to make sure that the art work is durable. I thought that was clever because besides the work’s aesthetic appeal, it is also functional as one can look at themselves on the mirrors as they curate their looks for the days as well as enjoying the viewing of these interesting art pieces.
Loefontein based artist Adelheid Frackiewicz’s body of work a series of installations deals with a serious matter of the Holocaust. I especially liked the installation that represents a shower titled Cleansing. This references the trauma that befell millions of Jews directly after the Second World War. Millions scattered throughout the world, are still affected indirectly by what befell their ancestors as stories of the horror are told today. Adelheid Frackiewicz is one of those people still affected indirectly and she deals with that trauma through the artworks she creates,
“”My late grandfather escape from possible horror of dying in a gas chamber escaping to South Africa. Till his death he never spoke about that horror, but my grandmother did,” she told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview during the viewing.
The idea of her of her grandfather having escaped from that horror still haunts her till this day, so much so that she has not summoned the courage to visit an important museum in Johannesburg called the Holocaust and Genocide Centre whose exhibitions deal with that tragedy in human history.
“Ï have chosen to deal with it through my art practice rather, and the Cleansing art piece references that,” she said.
The ABSA L’Atelier winners this year, a competition that has been going on for years as simply ABSA L’Atelier Awards winners but renamed Ambassadors since 2019, focuses on the skills and vision of these young contemporary artists from the 12 countries in which ABSA has a footprint. Often the art works produced through this competition are works that are in touch with contemporary issues in society, and the use of material is another issue that is quite dominant among the works of the winners this year.
The three ambassadors this year represent South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria.
Ayobola Kekere-Ekun was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1993. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Visual Arts from the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos; where she majored in Graphic Design. She is also a graduate assistant at the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos. Her work explores subjects connected to gender, mythology, power and the human condition in a multi-layered way; creating work through labor-intensive processes. Ayobola works predominantly with a technique known as quilling, in which strips of paper are individually shaped to create forms. She tends to quill with a variety of materials. Ayobola views the technique as a three-dimensional manifestation of lines, creating pockets of light and shadow. For her, the intricacy of her work is a visual metaphor of the complexity of the subject matter she engages with. Her artistic practice is heavily informed by personal experiences and observations. In her recent works, she is particularly interested in exploring the subtle interplay of knowledge gender, power and social structures in contemporary society. Her “knowledge” series explores the transient nature of information in contemporary times. Using printed material as a tangible visual symbol, the idea of knowledge is presented as an organic life form which is birthed, grows, evolves, stagnates, transforms and dies. However, new technologies and an ever shrinking global village have compressed and accelerated these processes throwing up a number of “mutations” in the process. The series seeks to examine how contemporary society interfaces with this phenomenon in connection to issues such as collective and individual memory, as well as social and political climates.
Refuge: An uncommon home, exhibition is currently on at ABSA Gallery on Main Street, Johannesburg CBD till February next year.
“From here the exhibition will travel to Bloemfontein, Ghana and Nigeria, Dr Paul Bayliss art specialist and curator of ABSA Gallery and Collection,” told CITYLIFE/ARTS.