We selected 5 talented artists to help us celebrate Black excellence in creativity during Black History Month 2020. We joined up with the makers of A Dark Mind a film which screened their documentary at Genesis Cinema during the same month as our exhibition. The touching documentary focused on the conversation around mental health in the Black community.

Keleenna Onyeaka

Keleenna taps into the art of storytelling in his portraiture work to tackle invisible subject matters such as culture, emotion and history, which includes the recently exhibited personal project “Ambivalent iiindividuals” – an exploration of the relationship between varying emotions and the singular identity. K has also produced a private collection of Fine Art stories that explore, culture, history and emotions from an African Diasporants perspective.

Contemporary diasporic masquerade is a playful visual exploration of traditional Igbo masquerade through the eyes of an African Diasporan photographer in the 21st century. Masquerades, also known as Mmanwu, are a distinctive part of the Igbo culture. The abstract and attractive visuals of a masquerade are an undeniable cultural reference point. I wanted to create a series of images that could serve as that same cultural reference point through my eyes, place and time.

Jasmin Kuti-Smith

Jasmine Kuti-Smith is a visual artist and designer based in Bermondsey, London. She is training in Set & Costume design for Theatre & Film at Wimbledon College of Arts and continues her own art practice alongside her studies. Jasmine works with mixed-media collage and takes inspiration from the Surrealist movement, combining fragmented imagery from magazines and historical photos. Her work often contains abstraction with themes including human connection, perceptions and realities.

This piece is exploring my own identity and disconnection from my Nigerian heritage. I have used this as a process of self-discovery and investigation of my African female ancestry, specifically my grandmother, Agnes Kuti, who died 1997 – the year I was born. Having never been to Nigeria or met any of my Nigerian family, it has created a gap in my own sense of self and I have made this work to explore these themes and my African heritage.

Sharon Adebisi

Sharon Adebisi was born in London, England in 1996. As a self-taught freelance artist, she uses her paintings to explore the identity issues she faces as a British-African hybrid, highlighting the emotions uncovered on this journey. Her work has been exhibited across the UK, and she was shortlisted in Jackson’s Painting Prize in 2020.

Earlier on in 2020, I travelled to Africa for the first time and visited Ghana, which was a big thing for me as a British-African hybrid. I finally was in the land my parents were raised in, the land that ran through my blood but I was never really taught about. I created my latest series, ‘The Ghana Series’ to visually journal the emotions I felt at different stages of the trip; from initial nervousness, to being overwhelmed, to becoming acclimatised to the new environment.

Lee-Roy Zozo

Lee-Roy Zozo is a graduating BA Fine Art student who is fascinated by wood and who uses its material qualities to celebrate black women in his work. He explores how black women are traditionally and currently represented in popular culture and considers ideas around status, objectification and the intersections of race, gender and class.

Inspired by the people he has met and or seen, Lee-Roy creates their image in paint on wood, allowing the lustre of the veneer to show in representation of the skin of the sitter. This considered use of wood looks to take us back to our roots, to a time when the material would be used by individuals to hand craft into representational, celebratory and protective ritualistic symbols. These paintings are signposts suggesting we reflect on where we come from, how we are connected to each other.

Edy Mpisaunga

Edy Mpisaunga, born in 1975, is a Zimbabwean artist living and working in London. Inspired by his fascination with the existential, Edy’s paintings, biro illustrations and collages portray humanoid forms with both earthly and otherworldly resonance.

My paintings, drawings, collages and sculptures explore existential themes. Generally figurative, they present abstract depictions of states of being and mind. Introspection is a theme that resonates in my work and a meditative/reflective essence is the foundation of my works.