Kravitz Contemporary has announced a new artist residency and annual exhibition to platform international artists from underrepresented backgrounds. Figure This is a two-part project in close collaboration with UK-based patrons of the arts, the Kowitz Family, and the Noldor Art Residency in Ghana. Featuring six international artists, the project serves as a testament to Kravitz Contemporary’s core ethos, diversifying the London-centric arts scene and truly championing individual and cultural expression through art.
A New Platform for Under-Represented International Artists
Born of a mutual interest to serve, support and showcase emerging artists from under-represented backgrounds, the project comprises a residency for non-Western artists with a unique cross section of Eastern European and Western African collaboration at Bridge Point Studios, Rye, and culminates in an exhibition of work produced at Kravitz Contemporary, opening in the week of Frieze 2023. Jointly selected by the Kowitz Family and Kravitz Contemporary, the six awarded artists partaking in the residency are each informed and indebted to the tradition of figurative painting but also visibly fraternise with its subversion.
Annan Affotey is a Ghanaian artist navigating black identity through portraiture. His paintings focus on individuals of colour from his personal life or strangers he meets through social media. Each portrait highlights the nuances of facial expression and examines what goes beyond the surface level. Affotey works to bring everyday experiences into intensely colourful, textured and expressive compositions, utilising modelling paste over pencil sketches which create his signature waves and ridges before finally applying paint.
Julia Kowalska is a visual artist based in Warsaw. Her work references human relationships, in which the artist seeks moments lined with ambiguity and explores the ambivalent nature of communing with the body.
As a believer in artistic freedom which revolves around the axis of society, culture, and politics, Nahom Teklehaimanot’s works are an attempt to provide a voice to the unheard. He explores diverse genres of paintings with inspiration from his surroundings. Born in Addis Ababa, the self-taught artist was heavily influenced by the basic creativity of children’s songs and lullabies.
