Elsewhere: Joseph Eze, Namsa Leuba,
Abraham Oghobase, Demola Ogunajo,
Vincent Michea, Paa Joe & Jacob Tetteh-Ashong, Yarisal and Kublitz
Art Twenty One is pleased to present Elsewhere, a group exhibition that explores contemporary notions of fantasy in an interconnected global environment. Working across artistic mediums, including painting, photography, sculpture, and collage, the artists in this exhibition define alternative ways of depicting otherness, not rooted in spatial boundaries but by instability, fluidity, and cross-cultural assimilation.
Elsewhere explores the relationship between history, memory, and the creation of new imaginaries, ranging from material manifestations of the afterlife to fake artifacts, cultural reconfigurations, and performative interventions.
Joseph Eze and Demola Ogunajo’s paintings adopt cultural references that span time periods and geographies, from mythical characters to street fashion and contemporary mass culture. Namsa Leuba’s photographs examine the representation of African identity through the Western imagination, combining an anthropological interest in ancient ceremonial structures with an aesthetic that is informed by fashion and design sensibilities.
Abraham Oghobase questions the socio-economic histories of African wax fabrics, inserting his own body within fictive scenarios. Paa Joe and Jacob Tetteh- Ashong create spectacular coffins in the form of consumer goods that speak to the aspirations and values of their intended users. Yarisal and Kublitz’s sculptures incorporate quotidian objects that take the form of pseudo-spiritual relics of a massproduced era, while Vincent Michea’s collages transform photographic portraits into silhouetted abstractions of geometric forms.
These artists point to the space between clearly defined boundaries, where meaning is produced through their simultaneous associations and junctures. In doing so, they form new understandings of ritual, transcendence and belonging that are intimately tied to the signifiers of a global economy.
