Unusual materials and forms for a new aesthetic

Once, it was said that Contemporary Art had to break away from the confines of a precise and defined aesthetic. It had to dare, provoke, astonish, and disorient the viewer. Today, this belief still holds, but subtly, there's a sense that something has changed.
The "challenge" each artist faces seems at times to be well-defined by a geometric scheme of ideas and visions. There appears to be a preconceived notion, an unwritten rule, something rigid that imposes limits or boundaries on an artist's vision. This obstacle is generally only overcome in the creation of sculptures.

Certainly, throughout the history of art, numerous artists have ventured beyond the horizontal, square, or circular canvas. However, these instances have often been personal explosions, unique concepts, occasionally reaching high levels, but not necessarily giving rise to a defined movement.

Then, at a certain point, Africa Continent comes into play, devoid of readily available materials and pre-established tracks for artistic creation. For some, this lack might be seen as a curse, but for others, it's a blessing. An artist's capacity becomes evident in observing the universality of thought that permeates them—how their vision expands, regardless of their situation, life, or place of belonging. This, in turn, shaped the avant- garde of the past into what they are today in terms of critical and artistic recognition.

There's a powerful force, a potent will to express oneself through every available means. This might evoke the concept of “Arte Povera” at first glance, and indeed, it does, but the discourse is much broader in this case.

The use of unusual materials is a hallmark of these artists. It's not merely a "Plan B" but a choice that, though preceded by economic challenges, starts with the principle of creating something new, unseen, unique in the contemporary artistic panorama. In the lives of these artists, there has never been a preconception, a foundation indicating precise rules, as they operate in a realm devoid of such constraints. I refer to the realms of creativity and art.

"Once you free your mind about the concept of harmony and of art being 'correct,' you can do whatever you want."

- Giorgio Moroder

And so it has been for these artists. What we celebrate with this exhibition is not only the innovative use of materials but the great ability for spatial composition and the clear vision accompanying the utilization and juxtaposition of different mediums. The judicious use of these materials is the result of this creation, wherein artists generate compositions with indefinite, variable, yet undoubtedly intriguing and intricate geometries.

The interweaving of various materials tells a unique story within the artworks, where each characteristic is highlighted yet simultaneously amalgamated in the artist's imaginative composition. A bottle cap is no longer waste; the same goes for fabric or a plastic bag. All become fundamental chords in the artist's imaginary firmament, where each object is meticulously positioned and imbued with personal significance for their work.

This indicates, more than ever, two aspects: first, a freedom of thought devoid of rules, and second—beyond great mastery—an incredible capacity for evolution and innovation that lays the groundwork for the birth of an informal movement. The gallery proposes this based on its in-depth study of these artists because these practices are changing the perception of the usual form, offering a new interpretation and direction to the dogmatic canons of current aesthetics.

As a part of this first pioneering wave of contemporary Malagasy artists he also actively participated in the cultural and artistic development of his country (Fashion festival Manja in 1998, the Sanga dance festival in 2003, Photoana festival in 2005, personal project 30 and Presque-Songes in 2007 and 2011, Parlez-moi in 2016). He first trained at an art school in Madagascar and then rubbed shoulders with craftsmen, which put him in touch with many renowned international designers.

His training took a decisive turn at the age of 20 in France when he began studying at the École spéciale d’architecture, in Paris. In 2005, he graduated as an architect, presenting a fully graphic and textile project, far from the classic architectural approach that his research director Odile Decq had recommended.

Throughout his career, his work has been shown on five continents, including many prestigious international cultural institutions such as the Maxxi in Roma (2018), the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2010), the Smithsonian in Washington (2015), the Centre Pompidou (2005) and Plais de Tokyo (2021) in Paris, the Zeitz Mocaa in Cape Town (2022), the Macaal in Marrkech (2022), among many others. Joël Andrianomearisoa also launched two public sculptures in Antananarivo in October 2021, supported by the Fonds Yavarhoussen.

His work forms part of important international collections including the Smithsonian (Washington DC), The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), the Collection Yavarhoussen (An- tananarivo) and the Museum Sztuki (Lodz), Zeitz Mocaa (Cape Town); Macaal (Marrakech); Fondation H (Paris & Antananarivo).
He participated in different Biennials like Biennial de la Habana, Cairo Biennial, Dakar Biennial, Sydney Biennial. Due to the invention and maturity of his work, his international reputation as well as the unconditional support of his professional network, in 2019 Joël Andrianomearisoa was chosen to represent his country alongside curators Rina Ralay Ranaivo and Emmanuel Daydé in the 58th edition of La Biennale di Venezia International Exhibition, with its own pavilion for the first time in its history. Joël Andrianomearisoa is also the founder and artistic director of Hakanto Contemporary, a non-profit independent space for artists in Antananarivo, Madagascar supported by the Fonds Yavarhoussen.

The participation of Joël Andrianomearisoa

Joël Andrianomearisoa expresses his art in an infinite number of ways. Although fabric is considered his main choice, he has never let this become a comfort zone, expanding his artistic elaboration through the use of different materials, all chosen with a precise study and purpose. Andrianomearisoa is a poet of the material, the compositions with which he designs and constructs his works are wisely studied in such a way as to be able to convey an emotion, a feeling, whether hopeful or dramatic, through the compositional arrangement of his creations.

"It is neither a painting, a sculpture nor an architectural assemblage... it is an installation that has different elements that refer to architecture, painting and sculpture but also to love, desire, loss, despair, hope"

- Joël Andrianomearisoa

The material becomes the aesthetic medium of his creed, the composer of his ideas, the communicator of a subtle and suave message. Many of his works are driven by an aesthetic credo, something that is animated by elegance, refinement, but also by the power of a subtle communication, conveying his philosophical facets without externalizing them immediately, but almost whispering softly and harmoniously to the viewer his allegory.

Through his work, Andrianomearisoa aims to be unique in the artistic and world panorama. He does not categorise his works in a segmented manner, but refers to them as installations, singular elements that are the result of a long and well-considered elaboration in order to best communicate his artistic being. The artist expresses how he does not like to necessarily give a meaning to everything. He does not obsessively seek an explanation for what he creates and what surrounds him. However, this does not mean that what he generates arises without a thought or a concept. What he wants is to invite the viewer to be carried away by emotion, by the sublime, by what he feels and perceives. To rationally explain something that happens emotionally in the artist's mind is sometimes counter-intuitive. Art is visual communication, a type of communication that is received in a totally different way than any other way. It speaks to our subconscious and we, emotionally, react accordingly, through our perceptions. How often do we say: 'I could describe what I feel with a thousand words, but they would not be enough'. This is because emotion manifests itself in a different code, it is not expressed by a clearly delineated language, but by a cognitive flow that lives within us, which is often something undeciphered and that we must learn to know.

What Joël's works convey is precisely this. He does not want to shout his thoughts at the viewer, but wants to express them with great class, through a great study of detail, calibration and decision-making in the positioning of the various elements that make up his works. An innate feeling of harmony, delicacy, elegance and dispositional refinement. When you create something subtle, delicate, it is normal for the message to be enigmatic, sometimes unsettling, but this is the rational part of our body that responds and speaks to us. Instead, what does the heart, our emotional part, think? It is a well-planned, sentimental work that speaks to a viewer through an intimate exchange of emotions. The heart of the artist and the heart of the viewer 'meet' the moment the viewer sees Joël's work. The latter decides to communicate through two signals: the aesthetic one, i.e., 'the installation' and the emotional one, i.e., what the work wants to convey (love, desire, loss, despair or hope).

While experimenting with these environmental pollutants, engaging possible processes of object remaking and reuse especially with non-conventional art making techniques and traditional craft processes, Anyaeji developed a style of art she calls “Plasto-Art”. This is an eco-aesthetic process of remaking, where she transforms her primary medium - used non-biodegradable plastic bags and bottles - by applying her crafting skills in a receding traditional Nigerian hair plaiting technique called Threading, combined with traditional basketry and fabric weaving techniques.

Using this technique, with an experimental approach to object-making that most often excludes anticipated conventions, Ifeoma creates very conceptually complex and organic sculptures and installations, with intricate textures and colours, that reference architectural forms, domestic spaces and furnishings, reiterations of cultural experiences, and discourses about the human body. And by spontaneously engaging the “old”, she questions the implications of modernity’s: consumptive systems of mass accumulation and waste generation, definitions of cul- tural assimilation and attitude to value, the expiration-date syndrome, and colonial orientations on beauty, authenticity, and newness.

EZE FUO EZE ANOCHIE

In 2013, during an artist residency in Nairobi, Kenya, I created a sculpture which I titled Eze Fuo eze anochie (when one King leaves another replaces him, meaning no condition is permanent), culled from the Igbo proverb “Eze Fuo eze anochie” (which is interpreted to mean that no situation is constant and nothing stays the same infinitely– also similar in meaning to the Nigerian saying “No condition is permanent”).

This sculpture was fulfilled as an interpretation to an unexpected climatic and culture shock I experienced while in Nairobi. Since I grew up in the warm tropical temperatures of Nigeria, with an assumption and specific view of how neighbouring African cultures sustained their heritage past their colonial histories, my expectation of Nairobi (Kenya) was not to be different from my experiences in Nigeria. However, the reality of my stay in Nairobi was contrary to assumptions I had of the place and what I had hoped the culture would be. While I could see how deeply seated the Euro-centric mannerism of existence was quite present in this East African country, making the socio-cultural environment far more alienating to me, I also could not comprehend the climatic difference since the country was close to the equatorial belt. The wintery weather I was experiencing during that period affected how I worked and lived during my residency. At the beginning I was reclusive, balled up and hesitant to engage with the people and the environment. This ‘new’ climatic change and replacement of the warm African heat that I knew by a weather so cold like the Fall-Winter temperatures of the places I had visited in North America and Europe, made me query what I had always believed was the idyllic equatorial and sub-Sahara Africa.

But as I came to terms with these new moments, I slowly became appreciative and more open to embracing those experiences in order to have a successful stay. Like every other Plasto-art work I had created, the work became a part of my continued journey to aesthetically document or journalize how I have chosen to perceive everything around me. By either adapting to the changes in cultural perception that continually modifies my environment or using my cultural knowledge to revise the changes in my environment. Especially in line with my neo-traditional practice, where the key focus is on the impermanence and perpetuity of value in the composition and sustenance of all aspects of our ecosystem–from cultural to biological. Furthermore, besides been an anthropological journal of my Kenyan visit, the work Eze Fuo eze anochie, metaphorically speaks about the continuousness of change, its effect in the replacement (or compromise) of indigenous values. It also embraces practices of my ethnic existence, to include a spoken language deeply saturated with a sagacity that can be applied outside its conventional fora. Yet, like many other aspects of indigenous material and non-culture, is faced with the risk of stagnation brought on by the pressures of today’s lobsided globalized ethnic contemporaneousness. Where what was once prolific, like traditional craft processes, art forms or the speaking of local languages in common spaces without apprehension, becomes overtaken by foreign guidelines on proper communal mannerism and unified language restrictions.

In decentralised pre-colonial Igbo history, the political system did not allow an Eze (king) to have absolute authority because it was believed that every member of each Igbo community was a part of the decision-making cabinet and contributed collectively to its administrative matters and social value up keep. Therefore, authority was a collective responsibility of everyone. It is in this same spirit of shared responsibility in deciding how our environment should be that I perceive my role as an advocate for the non-ephemerality of material and non-material culture and a harbinger of my Igbo origin. Thus, with every work I create, I have mandated myself to push for displaced traditional customs and modes of identity to always take their place as Ezes by tapping into their history and reformulating them the same way I have chosen to transform the discarded material to recreate a new environment.

- Ifeoma U. Anyaeji

The participation of ifeoma u. anyaeji

Growing up as an artist, Ifeoma she has always being intrigued by the intricacies of traditional craft processes and the use of unusual materials as art mediums. She also envisioned creating forms that communicate with and integrate elements from her environment, using the language of lines to replicate and transcribe societal and political occurrences and experiences of nature.
These visions and interests still abounds, continuously shaping her existence and creative attitude to life. Identifying as a Neo-traditional artist, her creative practice is about the transitions of African culture, within a globalized society, particularly Nigerian traditional aesthetics and cultural environmental ideologies. Such as material and non-material object reuse and repurposing, an ideology that focuses on formulating “new values” and extending the significance for objects assumed to have lost their “newness”. Her works are sculpted to encourage multiple interpretations from the viewer, with the aim to convey the importance of value preservation while stimulating a positive catalytic collective response towards eco cultural issues. Furthermore, it joins other similar aesthetic practices interested in probing the psychological and material appreciation of African cultures in post-colonial contemporary societies. Noting reductive effects of the very politicized historical study and archiving of the continent including today’s compulsory ethnic assimilations, disguised as globalization, on the composition of varied identities, whether gender or racial oriented. The compositions she is creating are intricate sculptures and installations that are vibrant and conceptual yet organic. Rhythmically infused with traditional metaphors, which continuously echo her ‘Igboness’ and craft-art ideologies, these works reference architectural forms, domestic spaces and furnishings, including silent discourses on the human body. By spontaneously engaging the “old”, Ifeoma’s works question the implications of modernity's consumptive systems of mass accumulation and waste generation, definitions of cultural assimilation and society's attitude to value, the expiration-date syndrome, colonial orientations on beauty, adaptation, authenticity, and newness.

The artist creates colourful-handcrafted sculptures and installations from non-biodegradable plastics such as bottles and plastic bags. Applying a unique practice, which she describes as Plasto-art, Anyaeji experiments with these global pollutants, binding the plastic with thread into woven braids and transforming them into vibrant, malleable textiles. Anyaeji uses a Nigerian hair-plaiting technique called Threading (Ikpa Owu in Igbo language), an increasingly obsolete hair-craft. These plastic braids are shaped and layered into densely textural sculptural forms, which encapsulate vibrant colours, spirals, coils, circles and loops. Combining hair threading with traditional West African basketry and fabric weaving techniques, Anyaeji reflects on the loss of such traditions as well as the environmental problems she encountered in her community in Nigeria. Weaving together personal and collective experiences, her distinctive sculptures also embrace forms and influences from West African culture, specifically the performance, folklore, music, textiles and the domestic and communal spaces of Nigeria.

“I was immediately drawn to the use of waste to create these larger-scale sculptural forms, to make something beautiful that has something to say about our environment and material reuse. References have also been made to the human body, architecture and domestic spaces. This idea that the sculptural forms are never complete was interesting as the pieces are often adapted, re-edited and reworked so they are always in process”.

– Ifeoma U. Anyaeji

She inventively combines her materials to form bold compositions that demonstrate persistent experimentation and mastery of technique that go beyond accepted boundaries of the medium, while weaving together personal and collective experiences that celebrates openness to the world and to diversity. Allusions and metaphors abound with reflections on universal experiences that celebrate openness to the world and to diversity.

His work often questions the ways in which societies and individuals have been affected by fac- tors such as war, the struggle for power, religion, globalization, ecological shifts and the AIDS epidemic.
His works look like wall tapestries: most of the time they are composed of layered, hand-em- broidered cotton ribbons. Colors play a big role and the choice depends not only on the com- position he has in mind but also on the symbolic meaning: the colours are the words of living nature that allow communica- tions but also interpretations. Three colours first: white, black and red. Magnetar poles connecting the inner substance of every ancient symbolism about colours. In Africa the colour is a religious symbol, full of signifiances and power.

A symphony of colours, a wide deep research through symbol and essence, this is the path Ab- doulaye Konaté is crossing in his latest works. It’s impossible to look at his artworks remaining emotionless. Konaté’s joyful compositions bring us in a universe filled with symbols, in an atmo- sphere charged of significances. Even if the political issue is cast aside, his language is unchan- ged, always strong, substantial, stripped of every unfoundamental decoration, forged to speak of Human and Nature through a simple medium, such as the colour. The language of colours is made of extrinsic impressions but also internal affections. Color is only one of the infinite enchanted symbols in Abdoulaye Konaté’s universe.

Abdoulaye Konaté, first studied painting at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako and then at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, where he lived for several years before returning to Mali.
Konate’s works are present in many prestigious public and private collections including: Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Ishøj; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dak’Art, Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, Dakar; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Smithsonian Museum, Washington; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Foundation Blachère, Apt; Musée National du Mali, Bama- ko; Fondation Guy & Myriam Ullens, Geneva; Fundação Sindika Dokolo or Gare do Oriente, Li- sbon; Uli Sigg Collection, Schloss, CH; Tate Modern, London, UK; The Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, Uli Sigg Collection, Luzern, among others.

Abdoulaye Konatè is one of the most representative contemporary African artists, in 2004 he participated in Africa Remix, in 2005 at the exhibition at the Center Pompidou, in 2007 at Do- cumenta 12 Kassel, he was present as a protagonist in all subsequent international exhibitions of African art, in 2010 had a retrospective anthological exhibition at the Dakar Biennale, in 2017 one of his monumental works was exhibited at the Arsenale of the 57th Venice Biennale. In 2020 Abdoulaye Konaté presents his monumental and site-specific installation Idéogramm- es, signes, symboles et logos (Hommage à Youssouf Tata Cissé et Germaine Dieterlen) at Zeitz MOCAA’s BMW Atrium. In 2020 Konaté is also one of the artists invited to participate in the exhibition “Global(e) Resistance” at Centre Pompidou, Paris, with one of his historical installa- tions, dated 1995-1996. In 2021 Abdoulaye Konaté has his first solo exhibition in Japan. “The Diffusion of Infinite Things”, held in Standing Pine spaces in Nagoya.

The participation of abdoulaye konaté

Konaté is known for his large-scale compositions that use a highly accentuated figurative and symbolic language. His textile installations explore socio-political and environmental issues, both specific to Mali and wider Africa; scenes of social unrest, military conflict, sovereignty, faith, globalization, ecological change, and epidemic all become objects of semiotic investigation and deconstruction. Employing materials typical of Mali, namely fabrics dyed, embroidered and hand-sewn together, Konaté is inspired by the West African tradition of using fabrics as a mode of communication and commemoration.

Its reference to a localized cultural technique is then astutely realigned to meet a broader geopolitical framework, where the material acts as an intercessor between local and global structures. One day, while he was drawing with pencil and trying to create volume through shades of grey, a teacher looked at his work and said: “you can get more depth if you understand colour”. The young artist Abdoulaye Konaté thus understood that by broadening his palette he could broaden his expression. He began incorporating textiles into installations tearing the colour fabric into small fragments. This idea came to him while observing the traditional clothing of Senoufo musicians. Abdoulaye Konaté’s work speaks to us via the senses rather than reason. And the colours, that feature as a leitmotiv, in a rhythmical line that is the motif, are like a musical variation around which the artist’s symphony revolves. Colours that underscores, intensifies, brightens. A turbulent silence, an eclectic joy, the meaning of which vanishes with the end of the spectator's sight. In Konaté's impressive Fiber Art installations, colour is a harbinger of feelings, pacifist messages and high ideals, a symbolic vector of the semantic content of the work: blue, available in multiple shades, is the color of the typical Tuareg clothing, the yellow is that of the desert, the green of the Niger river, the white of the Arabs.

Other cultural influences from West Africa and elsewhere have fuelled his aesthetic research: music, dance and even the Korodouga, a highly respected brotherhood in Mali and Ivory Coast, which uses satire to challenge power and behaviour social. Their costumes are dotted with amulets, fetishes or abandoned objects and plastic, making these "sacred buffoons a sort of landfill for society", says the artist, who praises their total freedom of expression. The colourful textile stripes covering his "canvases" have become a favourite form of expression for Konaté, with some critics using the term "tapestry" or "patchwork" to describe his monumental compositions. The artist insists that he did not actually choose this vocabulary; rather he worked on his palette like a painter. Konaté's work is poetic, mythical and ancestral, which takes fabric as a medium of expression and communication, a key element of his artistic research and of a narrative of singular evocative force.

“The process of working leads to discoveries or solutions,” he states simply. “I never thought I would stop painting acrylics or oils.” But this vibrant and moving material, common and familiar throughout the world, especially in Mali, a major producer of the widely exported bazin cotton fabric, has the advantage of creating secret correspondences between everyday reality and abstraction. A chaotic world, one that this great figure of the contemporary African scene tries modestly to translate, without attempting to take on a role other than of a citizen, who observes his environment and tries to find a non-violent way of showing everything relating to human suffering. A symphony of colours, a wide deep research through symbol and essence, this is the path Abdoulaye Konaté is crossing in his latest works. It’s impossible to look at his artworks remaining emotionless. Konaté’s compositions bring us in a universe filled with symbols, in an atmosphere charged of significances. Even if the political issue is cast aside, his language is unchanged, always strong, substantial, stripped of every unfoundamental decoration, forged to speak of Human and Nature through a simple medium, such as the colour. The language of colours is made of extrinsic impressions but also internal affections.

“We are symbols and inhabit symbols; workmen, work, and tools, words and things, birth and death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and, being Infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them a power, which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes and a tongue into every dumb and inanimate object”.

- Abdoulaye Konaté

The power of these compositions, where traditional and contemporary layers of interpretation intersect where each of the thousands of pieces of fabric seems to find its perfect place, as if entrusted with a testimony that is essential to the harmony of a whole.

Through experimentation, Makaza came up with silicone infused with ink and paint, which he is able to mould, paint, weave and sculpt, thus allowing him to use a totally innovative medium, which leads to new shapes, structures and textures. Troy Makaza’ surreal works, woven from painted silicone strings, inhabit the space on both side of painting and sculpture, creating a threadlike spider web.

His is a broader examination of the fluid and in-flux relationships in contemporary Zimbabwe that bound together powerful metaphors for social and intimate spaces, where traditional values and liberal attitudes are no longer assured.

In his recent works, Troy has reflected on the cataclysmic events of November 2017 (and beyond), which saw the end of the 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe and the interplay between the military and people’s peaceful protest in bringing about the change. While abstract, his works pick up on and merge the colors of military fatigues and those of every day clothing as rumination on what it meant and what it will mean for Zimbabwe going forward. In all of Makaza’s works we find a very strong connection to his land, to his origins, to what is happening today or to what happened in the past.

Selected collections include: Fondazione Fiera Milano, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Tiroche De Leon Collection, Jorge Perez Collection, Rollins Museum of Art, Florida, USA.

“The medium is very intimately connected to my work on a number of levels. First of all, it combines a traditional art medium with a novel one. This is something that I am re- ally conscious of doing as a contemporary Zimbabwean artist – bridging tradition with contemporary practice. Secondly, this medium allows me to move between sculpture and painting and to disrupt categories set up by people who are not us, so in a way it is me asserting my right as an artist to determine how I am seen and not allow myself or my content to be categorised. My subject matter is equally fluid mo- ving between abstraction and figuration because neither category is in fact pure and the formality of these definitions don’t make sense to me.”

- Troy Makaza

The participation of Troy makaza

The surreal works of Troy Makaza, woven with painted silicone cords, inhabit the space between painting and sculpture, creating a threadlike structure. His creations maintain diverse narratives, ranging from issues of a socio-political nature to more personal stories and visions, determined by the artist's experiences. This was well expressed in the solo exhibition "Instinct of a Great Survivor" held in 2022 at Primo Marella Gallery - Lugano. On the occasion of the exhibition, the artist explained how, throughout his life, he had learned to accept the challenges presented to him, always striving to find a solution. Similarly, this part of the artist's life becomes a metaphorical element of the Zimbabwean people, who must necessarily find a way to move forward, even in a situation of enormous difficulty within the country's social landscape. The reason Troy developed such a particular technique lies in the fact that he does not believe in formal classifications in art. And so, he invents in a completely original way a medium that can unite two elements: painting & sculpture, classifications that, in the artist's disregard, have never existed. His imagination did not want to have a limit of form, and through this "instinct of survival," he found his own way.

"The medium is very intimately connected to my work on a number of levels. First of all, it combines a traditional art medium with a novel one. This is something that I am really conscious of doing as a contemporary Zimbabwean artist, bridging tradition with contemporary practice. Secondly, this medium allows me to move between sculpture and painting and to disrupt categories set up by people who are not us, so in a way it is me asserting my right as an artist to determine how I am seen and not allow myself or my content to be categorized. My subject matter is equally fluid moving between abstraction and figuration because neither category is, in fact, pure and the formality of these definitions doesn’t make sense to me.”

- Troy Makaza

Within his technique, which may seem alien to many, lies the incredible will of the artist to come forward, overturning beliefs of a purely formal nature. While the viewer may feel disoriented in front of Makaza's works, at the same time, they immediately begin to understand his radical perspective on the conception of art. Silicone is disconcerting, but thinking about it, it is a brilliant solution. It is malleable and liquid during application, allowing the artist to "paint" his visions. At the same time, it becomes solid and three-dimensional during drying, giving concreteness and depth to the works. Faced with a challenge, Makaza seeks to find a solution. He himself does not know if what he will do will be correct or not, but what is certain is that he will tirelessly try to solve what is presented to him. The choice of an unusual material like silicone represents the very personal challenge that the artist has with himself.

Besides being an alternative solution, it is a signal indicating that African art, especially that of Zimbabwe, does not adhere to dogmatic principles on how to conceive a work. Instead, it is a vision uncontaminated by an aesthetic canon imposed by the past. It is a new world, a new way of creation, free from preconceptions and barriers, of which Troy is an ambassador.

He discovered his talent at the age of 9 years while assisting his father in his shoe workshop – where he started making life drawings of customers that visited the shop. He was also influence by his mother tailoring workshop – as a kid who played with colourful, fabrics and sewing needles and thread.
Since early childhood, elements that now shape his contemporary practice have surrounded him.Self- proclaimed “custodian of material culture”, Nnorom draws upon materiality in a unique way, dedicating his art to textile recycling and a sociological reflection on the human condition.

Through actions like sewing, tying and cutting, the rising artist creates intricate constellations of fabric- covered foam balls meticulously stitched together, evoking a metaphor for a “fabric of society” composed of closed social structures forming the bubbles in which our daily lives are wrapped in.
He navigates the boundaries between textiles, painting and sculpture in a poetic rendition. Using Ankara textiles – whose origins are complex in the history of the continent, Nnorom explores its protean symbolism and reappropriates a contemporary fabric omnipresent in his community.

He is interested in the identity and meaning that fabrics represent especially the Ankara fabric which is mostly consumed in his local community and west Africa. Fabric suggests to him a social structure or social organization that weaves humanity into society; in the case of “fabric of society” or “social fabric”, it is peculiar to different societies while bubble suggests a structure that holds or stores something for a period of time.

His mission is to engage viewers questioning the socio-political structures and the human conditions of our life: of what truth and conspiracy connote to our daily lives wrapped in bubbles.

The participation of samuel nnorom

As a child growing up in Nigeria, Samuel Nnorom’s artistic sensibilities emerged from observing the creative processes of his father, a shoemaker, and his mother, a tailor. Realizing his natural propensity for life drawing and sewing through these early explorations, Nnorom later developed his artistic skillset in art school, apprenticeships, and residencies.
An element of his practice that has remained constant throughout his career is his dedication to textiles and unusual materials and their capacity as social agents in society. His art is identified with textile sculptures made from Ankara/African wax fabric sourced from tailors or from off-cast clothing that is wrapped around recycled foam into balls or “bubbles” of various dimensions. These textile orbs are formed into clusters that appear like dense land masses with differently coloured textiles suggesting people, mountains, streams, islands, and peninsulas. As a fabric that is used to drape the body, it is noteworthy that Nnorom sees the weft and weave of his fabrics as akin to a social structure. In his latest work, Nnorom looks at how his sculptures can be considered a metaphor for a “fabric of society,” made up of individual lives united in space. For him, the history and social statement relayed in each fabric print becomes a visual language much like a written text. Nnorom’s work intersects the boundaries between tapestry, painting, and sculpture; similar to the way his work surpasses the bounds of representation, symbols, or exact points of reference.

He began to challenge conventional thinking, blurring borders and creating unconventional structures that incorporate artistic elements from different ecosystems. The methods he uses to cluster the orbs in space vary greatly: some are densely packed, while others are spaced apart and connected by web like tendrils. We can observe multitude of variations through colour, scale, and form demonstrate Nnorom’s capacity to push his chosen material and artistic strategy into infinite directions and shapes.

Nnorom’s fast-rising profile and legitimate posturing as one of the most exiting contemporary Nigerian artists derive from the dynamic and fascinating landscape of his textile-based sculpture installations. The stylistic architecture of his art is firmly rooted in the culture of radical practice that foregrounds the art tradition of Fine and Applied Arts Department of the University of Nigeria where he pursuing a master in sculpture. He saw in the visible and hidden attributes of the textile bubble a metaphorical codification of the litany of truths, half-truths, lies, denials. A continuously expanding universe where the material element becomes the centre of the investigation that supports the entire structure. The sculpture is the Omega but also the Alpha, it is a part but also the whole. The exploration on the synergic materiality in relation to the structural formation of bubbles into sculptural piece gives the idea of thought of what Plato consider as “the real world of the forms, which are perfect and unchanging and the sensible world that we all perceive around us which is an imperfect copy of forms and insofar as the copy is imperfect so is its illusion”. This is what the artist states:

“I hope for my works to inspire endless possibilities in the minds of audiences by promoting self-interrogation and critical thinking while appreciating artistry at its finest”.

– Samuel Nnorom

His interest lies in the history, value, meaning, politics, consumption, power, and identity represented on the wax prints or African print fabric (Ankara) and the second- hand or used clothes (Okirika), which are predominantly consumed within the local community and West Africa. Fabrics evoke a sense of social structure or organisation that interlaces humanity into society; however, when referring to the “fabric of society” or “social fabric,” it is unique to different societies that inform his contemplation on socio-political structures, consumerism, industrialization, and colonial remnants. These themes are sometimes expressed through metaphors such as bubble forms, bindle forms, lines of fabric strips, exploded bubbles, and tied clothes on architectural structures or canvases using techniques such as cutting, rolling, stitching, tying, and installation. Such expressions respond to our daily lives and struggles while fostering commonality and social connection. His mission is to engage viewers in self- interrogation, bringing different techniques and the use of different and unusual materials and finally design a new unique aesthetics into the world of Art.

The participation of moffat takadiwa

Since the beginning, Moffat has distinguished himself from every other artist through his work of reusing materials and the ability to create something incredible out of nothing. Moffat is one of the initiators of this movement. We must consider him one of the most dedicated representatives of a movement whose distinctive feature is highlighted by the use of unusual materials. Undoubtedly, at present, in Africa, this trend is developing rapidly, thanks in part to the enormous success of El Anatsui, whom we can consider the founding father of this unofficial movement.

The decision to include Moffat in this project does not stem exclusively from his use of recycling art. Takadiwa (just like Anatsui) carries profound messages: imagination beyond every barrier and social condition. The artist himself stated that the reason that drove him to use these types of mediums was the impossibility of finding artistic materials to create classic "oil on canvas" paintings. However, with the refinement of his practice over the years, the artist understood that this was no longer just a necessary choice but something that belonged to him and represented him, a means to shape an identity, a narrative of himself and his country.

Moffat's art is vibrant, dreaming of the rebirth of his country, Zimbabwe, currently oppressed by hyperinflation and opaque government mechanisms distant from the needs of the people. Moffat manages to see beauty in difficulty, in what might seem like trivial rejection to us -Europeans. His works now more than ever indicate the incredible imaginative and creative potential that the best African artists can express. "Unusual Materials and Forms for a new Aesthetic" encapsulates all of this.

The exhibition aims to broaden the horizons of art, highlighting how this artistic conception represents the true identity of the African people. Zimbabwe has produced two high-caliber artists in this regard, Troy Makaza and Moffat Takadiwa. Both work with decidedly unusual materials, not producing a new sophisticated and technological technique but using elements that go beyond the classic conception of artistic material. The works of Makaza and Takadiwa are not limited to isolated experiences, a solo excursion aiming to take random materials with which to forge their own works.

The difference is as subtle as it is vital: the work is no longer conceived starting from the subject to be represented but from the object, the medium used, the unusual material. The genesis revolves around this. Computer keys, bottle caps, silicone, and brushes constitute the order of a very personal artistic vision that is extraordinarily original and pioneering. The strength of African artists lies precisely in this approach: finding a means, whatever it may be, to convey an authentic, true message intrinsically linked to themselves and their land.

“I believe that I am not making objects exactly, but statements which are meant to change the lives of my people, the image of my country, and the world at large. Through my work I collide the laws and policies of my country against the excretes of its society.”

- Moffat Takadiwa