Emily Gilbanks
In the Message of Things, 2024,
Oil on Canvas
200 x 180 cm (78 3/4 in x 70 7/8 in)
'All That I've Got Is You', is a pertinent first exhibition for Hope93, a gallery founded on the ethos and principles of family, familial legacy, love, support, and helping where we can. The exhibition features eleven artists, some established art world names with a carefully curated selection of recent artists at an earlier stage in their career, and with very promising trajectories. The aim here being to bolster the new talent on the shoulders of established names to help in championing their careers, whilst demonstrating the links that tie each generation to the next, lending an art historical framework of past and present trends, aiding in situating each artist within the wider legacy of the field. The works are a joyful medley of figurative pieces, some heavily abstracted, others bordering on photo realistic, all united by the themes of family depicted, or the immediate familial ties the artist has with their subject. We welcome you to join us in the ever growing hope93 family and trust you'll be as moved by this selection as we have been in curating it.
Phoebe Boswell : (b.1982, Nairobi; Lives and Works in London). Boswell is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is centred on drawing but spans animation, sound, video,writing, interactivity, and performance. Boswell’s work often exists within imaginary spheres through which black feminism becomes a tool for building a radical new world, rebuffing the objectifying gaze, and instead staring straight back at the viewer. Boswell is the recipient of the Future Generation Art Prize's Special Prize (2017) and consequently exhibited as part of the Collateral Events programme at the 57th Venice Biennale. Her work is in numerous museum collections worldwide, and she has had many exhibitions at international commercial galleries including Gagosian, Kristin Hjellegjerde, Carroll / Fletcher, and Tiwani Contemporary.
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones : (b.1992, London; Lives and Works in New York). Jones' work emerges from a perspective of what the artist describes as ‘cultural addition, combination and collaboration’. His practice is inspired by the ancient history of West Africa; the mythologies, folklore and ritual pertaining to the region, as well as being informed by his Yoruban heritage. The combination of these two perspectives and his rich imagery; that of dancers, lovers, deities, and mythological creatures often seeks to interrogate the poles of idolatory and mortality through a diasporic lens. Adeniyi-Jones is represented by White Cube, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. Adeniyi-Jones featured in the exhibition as part of Nigeria’s national pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, 2024.
Kansiime Brian Lister : (b.1995, Kampala; Lives and Works in Uganda). A self taught artist, Kansiime’s works are nearing on photorealistic and capture the sentiment of ‘sisterhood and brotherhood’ shared between black men and women world over. A bond he considers special and made not of blood, but of a shared understanding - one often coming about through historical oppression. Taking friends and family as his subjects, Kansiime lifts these individuals by placing them in decadent and powerful surroundings, sometimes historical, sometimes contemporary to rewrite narratives of opportunity and power.
Esiri Erheriene-Essi : (b. 1982 in London; Lives and Works in London). Erheriene-Essi works across mid - large scale canvases depicting figurative scenes based from collective archives; documents, objects, histories, books; ever-collecting and creating new archives from the existing. She takes these shared, collective archives and splices the histories to question what has been and what can be. In her interrogation of these discrepancies, she re-edits narratives and retells a history without the shadow of injustice. She has had several museum exhibitions including the Kunstmuseum in Basel.
Emily Gilbanks : (b.1999, Colchester; Lives and Works in London). At 20 Emily became the youngest person ever to complete an MA from the Royal College of Art, London where she was awarded The Fribourg Philanthropies Painting Prize when she graduated. Gilbanks' work examines a new mode within the figurative genre - the ‘temporary sitter’ - working in London she considers all people she encounters as subjects, her first solo exhibition focusing on the temporary sitters, the daily commuters on London’s tubes. Through this exploration of normal people in normal settings, Gilbank's taps into an alienation, anonymity, and voyeuristic quality that is ubiquitous in the city.
Wangari Mathenge: (b.1973, Nairobi, Kenya; Lives and Works in Chicago). Originally training as a laywer, Mathenege's work is more often that not socially engaged, as is the case with A Day of Rest which seeks to highlight the plight of domestic workers in Kenya. Her work typically centres around themes of black feminism, with a focus on female figures, often in domestic settings reclaiming power whilst upholding their traditional cultural heritage in contexts that are often removed from the landscape. Mathenge is represented by Pippy Houldsworth and Roberts projects, she currently has a standout exhibition with Nicola Vassell gallery in New York.
Kudzanai Violet Hwami: (b.1993, Gutu, Zimbabwe; Lives and Works in London). Hwami draws on her history of geographical dislocation and displacement to create personal, intimate portraits often focusing on her immediate and extended family. These visions are poetic recollections of South African life, examining questions of black embodiment, sexuality, gender, and memory through saturated and bold canvases. She was included in the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, her first solo institutional exhibition was held at Gasworks, London; she is represented by Victoria Miro.
Sungi Mlengeya: (b.1991, Tanzania; Lives and Works in London). Strength, and strength in womanhood are the overriding themes of Mlengeya’s artistic practice. Originally training in the field of finance, Mlengeya is a self-taught artist. Her style, one that is sparse, utilises negative space in a beguiling and dominating way to depict monochromatic figures of women and girls (typically her sisters, mother, aunts and friends) in exquisite detail. This minimalistic work allows for the interlocutor to consider these individuals without background noise.
Guy Stanley Philoche: (b.1977, Haiti; Lives and Works in New York). Having migrated to the states from Haiti at a very young age, Philoche’s work is a vibrant blend of two worlds, that of New York and the Caribbean. Philoche taught himself to speak English through the medium of cartoons as a child, his work capturing a joy and excitement, that of being a small child straddling two worlds. A Yale graduate, Philoche's work is a masterful demonstration of a deep knowledge of art history and practices, drawing on colour-theory, expressionism and pop-art in his vibrant canvases.
Joy Labinjo : (b.1994, London; Lives and Works in London). Labinjo is a British-Nigerian artist holding an MFA from Oxford university. Interrogating issues of race, politics, the black female body, and sexuality, her large scale-figurative works depict intimate and personal scenes with origins in both real and imagined archives. A bold story-teller, Labinjos works have a ‘collage aesthetic’ with planes of colour and angular shapes creating softer intimate worlds that echo the multitudes contained in the experience of growing up Black, British, Nigerian and Female in the 90s and 00s.
Chinemerem Omeh: (b.1999, Enugu, Nigeria; Lives and Works in Atlanta, Georgia). Omeh holds a BA in fine and applied arts from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he majored as a painter. His work is deeply autobiographical and personal, taking images (some from memories, some photographs) of his childhood he creates layered canvases with a dreamlike and nostalgic quality, that stack memory like tissue paper. He has participated in a number of small exhibitions internationally, and is quickly cementing his name in the ranks of tomorrow's blockbuster names.