Art and Design
The Place Welcome to The Place is Here online educational resource. This website is designed to support learning and conversations around race, politics, activism, and the arts in the context of British history and The Black Arts Movement. https://theplaceishere.org
Syed Haider Raza Born: February 22, 1922; Babaria, India Nationality: French, Indian Art Movement: Art Informel Genre: abstract Field: painting https://www.wikiart.org/en/s-h-raza
Yinka Shonibare Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA is a British-Nigerian artist living in the United Kingdom. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is the brightly coloured Dutch wax fabric he uses. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/yinka-shonibare-ra
Sokari Douglas Camp Sokari Douglas Camp CBE is a London-based artist who has had exhibitions all over the world and was the recipient of a bursary from the Henry Moore Foundation. She was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 Birthday Honours list. Born: 1958 (age 62 years), Buguma, Nigeria Education: California College of the Arts Known for: Steel sculpture Books: Sweeping: Sculpture by Sokari Douglas Camp, Knots of the Human Heart: Sculpture https://sokari.co.uk/
The Singh Twins The Singh Twins are contemporary British artists of international standing whose award-winning paintings have been acknowledged as constituting a unique genre in British Art and for initiating a new movement in the revival of the Indian miniature tradition within modern art practice – something which, in 2010, was officially recognized at the highest level of British Establishment when they each received an MBE from the Queen “for Services to the Indian Miniature Tradition of Painting in Contemporary Art”. https://www.singhtwins.co.uk https://www.christies.com/features/The-Singh-Twins-Studio-Visit-7344-3.aspx
Chakaia Booker An internationally renowned and widely collected American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works from recycled tires and stainless steel for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been exhibited across the US, in Europe, Africa, and Asia. https://nmwa.org/art/artists/chakaia-booker/
Faith Ringgold Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, mixed media sculptor and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts. Wikipedia Born: 8 October 1930 (age 89 years), Harlem, New York, United States Artworks: Tar Beach (Part I from the Woman on a Bridge series), MORE On view: Baltimore Museum of Art, MORE Known for: Painting; Textile arts; Children's Books https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/faith-ringgold/
Yayoi Kusama Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. http://www.artnet.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/
Elizabeth Catlett Elizabeth Catlett was an American and Mexican graphic artist and sculptor best known for her depictions of the African-American experience in the 20th century, http://www.artnet.com/artists/elizabeth-catlett/
Amrita Sher Gil Amrita Sher-Gil was a Hungarian-Indian painter. She has been called "one of the greatest avant- garde women artists of the early 20th century" and a "pioneer" in modern Indian art. Drawn to painting from an early age, Sher-Gil started getting formal lessons in the art, at the age of eight. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/obituaries/amrita-shergil-dead.html
Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. https://www.biography.com/artist/frida-kahlo
Harriet Powers Harriet Powers was an American folk artist, and quilt maker. She was born into slavery in rural Georgia. She used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her quilts are known to have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Pictorial Quilt 1898. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556462
Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, CBE is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trinidad and Tobago, where he currently resides in Port of Spain. http://www.artnet.com/artists/chris-ofili/
Nnenna Okore Nnenna Okore is an artist who works both in Nigeria and the United States. Her largely abstract sculptures are inspired by textures, colours and forms within her immediate milieu. https://www.artsy.net/artist/nnenna-okore
Beatriz Milhazes Beatriz Milhazes is a Brazilian artist. She is known for her work juxtaposing Brazilian cultural imagery and references to western Modernist painting. http://www.artnet.com/artists/beatriz-milhazes/
Larry Chiampong Achiampong (b. 1984, UK) is a Jarman Award nominated artist (2018). He completed a BA in Mixed Media Fine Art at University of Westminster in 2005 and an MA in Sculpture at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2008. He lives and works in Essex, and has been a tutor on the Photography MA programme at Royal College of Art since 2016. Achiampong currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) and is represented by C Ø P P E R F I E L D. https://www.larryachiampong.co.uk/list-of-artworks/sundays-best https://vimeo.com/180301736
Sutapa Biswas Sutapa Biswas is a British Indian conceptual artist, who works across a range of media including painting, drawing, film and time-based media. https://iniva.org/library/digital-archive/people/b/biswas-sutapa/
Hugh Hayden Hugh Hayden’s practice considers the anthropomorphization of the natural world as a visceral lens for exploring the human condition. Hayden transforms familiar objects through a process of selection, carving and juxtaposition to challenge our perceptions of ourselves, others and the environment. Raised in Texas and trained as an architect, his work arises from a deep connection to nature and its organic materials. Hayden utilizes wood as his primary medium, frequently loaded with multi-layered histories in their origin, including objects as varied as discarded trunks, rare indigenous timbers, Christmas trees or souvenir African sculptures. From these he saws, sculpts and sands the wood, often combining disparate species, creating new composite forms that also reflect their complex cultural backgrounds. https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/hugh-hayden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBhMvSzXdbY
Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa is a photographer, writer, and editor of The Great Leap Sideways. He has a BA in Philosophy & French from Oxford University, UK and an MFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has contributed essays to catalogues and monographs by Vanessa Winship, George Georgiou, and Paul Graham. His photographic work addresses questions of patriarchy, race, history, and identity. https://americansuburbx.com/2019/02/one-wall-a-web-an-interview-with-stanley-wolukau- wanambwa.html https://vimeo.com/186417353
Amy Sherald Amy Sherald is an American painter based in Baltimore, Maryland. She is best known for her portrait paintings. Her choices of subjects look to enlarge the genre of American art historical realism by telling African-American stories within their own tradition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPQSKQ7Rnyo
David Medalla David Medalla is a Filipino international artist. His work ranges from sculpture and kinetic art to painting, installation and performance art. He lives and works in Manila and Berlin. Medalla was born in Manila, the Philippines, in 1942. https://hepworthwakefield.org/artist/david-medalla/
Frank Bowling Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling OBE RA, known as Frank Bowling, is a Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to Abstract expressionism, Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD5Ft2t7QBI
Helen Cammock Known for: Film, Image, Photography, Writing, Poetry, Spoken word, Song, Performance, Printmaking, Installation art. https://vimeo.com/371103846
Donald Rodney Born in 1961 in Birmingham, UK, Donald Rodney first achieved visibility as part of The Blk Art Group in the early 1980s. During that decade, he went on to become a key figure within the broad alliance of artists, which came to be known as The Black Art Movement. Rodney illustrated his versatility utilizing a range of mediums from painting, installation and photography to robotics, film and digital yet often defying simple categorisation, both thematically and through the innovative approach to materials and technical processes. He chose to incorporate his medical condition of sickle cell anemia, an illness he had been living with his whole life. He used this as a metaphor for black emasculation, racial stereotyping and wider socio-political concerns in contemporary society. On March 1998, Rodney died from sickle-cell anemia, aged 36. His artistic career had spanned two decades and produced some of the most engaging and innovative work by a British artist of his generation. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/donald-rodney-3076 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British painter and writer. She is best known for her portraits of fictitious subjects painted in muted colours. Her work has contributed to the renaissance in painting the black figure. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/lynette-yiadom-boakye
Faisal Abdu’Allah Faisal Abdu'Allah is a British artist and barber. His work includes photography, screenprint and installations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LdAskiMG8s John Acomfrah John Akomfrah, CBE is a British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator of Ghanaian descent, whose "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/john-akomfrah Hurvin Anderson Hurvin Anderson is a Birmingham painter. http://www.artnet.com/artists/hurvin-anderson/
Rasheed Araeen Rasheed Araeen is a Karachi born, London-based conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, writer, and curator. Moved from abstract to political art. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jan/16/rasheed-araeen-interview-restaurant- shamiyaana-stoke-newington
David A. Bailey David A. Bailey MBE is a photographer, writer, curator, lecturer and cultural facilitator. He is the founding Director of ICF (International Curators Forum) and a Trustee of the Stuart Hall. Foundation. https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/news-blog/2015/jan/david-a-bailey- mbe-joins-us-for-staying-power-art-and-the-black-experience/ Black Audio Film Collective The Black Audio Film Collective, founded in 1982 and active until 1998, comprised seven Black British and diaspora multimedia artists and film makers: John Akomfrah, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, Reece Auguiste, Trevor Mathison, Edward George and Claire Joseph. Joseph left in 1985 and was replaced by David Lawson. https://lux.org.uk/artist/black-audio-film-collective
Black Arts Collective The movement was founded around the time of the First National Black Art Convention organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/british-black-arts-movement
Denzil Forrester Denzil Forrester (born 1956) is a Grenada-born artist who moved to England as a child in 1967. Previously based in London, where he was a lecturer at Morley College, he moved to Truro, Cornwall in 2016. https://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/whats-on/denzil-forrester-itchin- scratchin/
Lubaina Himid Himid makes paintings, prints, drawings and installations which celebrate Black creativity and the people of the African diaspora while challenging institutional invisibility. She references the slave industry and its legacies, and addresses the hidden and neglected cultural contribution made by real but forgotten people. In Naming the Money 2014, 100 cut-out life size figures depict Black servants and labourers who Himid individualises, giving each of them a name and story to work against the sense of the powerless mass. She often takes her paintings off the gallery wall so that her images become objects that surround the viewer. Whether working on Guardian newspapers or directly onto porcelain tableware, Himid continually subjects painting to the material of everyday life in order to explore Black identity. https://www.artsy.net/artist/lubaina-himid
Claudette Johnson Claudette Johnson is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and involvement with the BLK Art Group. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today". http://hollybushgardens.co.uk/?page_id=15020Remi Kapo
Eugene Palmer Eugene Olive Palmer is a Jamaican-born British artist. His work uses archival records, photographs, and contemporary media imagery as basis for his paintings. https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Eugene+Palmer+artist&client=s afari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD1YuVkPjqAhXXQhUIHU_zD5YQsAR6BAgLEAE&biw=1565&bih=914
Mark Sealy Dr Mark Sealy MBE is interested in the relationship between photography and social change, identity politics, race, and human rights. He has been director of London-based photographic arts charity Autograph ABP since 1991 and has produced numerous artist publications, curated exhibitions, and commissioned photographers and filmmakers worldwide, including the critically acclaimed Human Rights Human Wrongs exhibition curated for Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto, in 2013 and The Photographers’ Gallery, London, in 2015. https://www.google.com/search?q=Mark+Sealy&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa= X&ved=2ahUKEwi48L_pkfjqAhW_VRUIHW_xDVoQ_AUoAnoECBUQBA&biw=1565&bih=889
Marlene Smith Marlene Smith is a British artist and curator, and one of the founding members of BLK Art Group. She was director of The Public in West Bromwich. She is UK Research Manager for Black Artists and Modernism, a collaborative research project run by the University of the Arts London and Middlesex University. https://homemcr.org/event/marlene-smith/
Maud Sulter Maud Sulter was a Scottish contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer and curator of Ghanaian heritage. https://www.impressions-gallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Exhibition- Guide_Final_lores.pdf
Eduardo Kobra Eduardo Kobra, known as Kobra, is a street artist who officially began his career in 1987 at 12 years old, in his hometown of São Paulo. Since then he has painted over 3,000 murals on five different continents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlAg8udmgKo
Kehinde Wiley Working exclusively in portraiture, Kehinde Wiley fuses traditional formats and motifs with modern modes of representation. Selecting works from old masters like Peter Paul Rubens or Jacques-Louis David, Wiley replaces the historical figures with handsome young black men. In his related, ongoing “World Stage” series, Wiley’s heroic figures are depicted in front of colorful background patterns that make specific reference to textiles and decorative patterns of various cultures, from 19th- century Judaica paper cutouts to Martha Stewart’s interior colour swatches. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kehinde+Wiley&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=QIRPQ90mP NPvMM%252CLWJS7X-R5YHknM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_- kTOfzanwysVTj5WWsm7BBE0GBTBWg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi06ZW3rfbqAhXPTxUIHf_lCy8Q_h0wHn oECBYQBQ&biw=1680&bih=987#imgrc=QIRPQ90mPNPvMM http://www.artnet.com/artists/kehinde-wiley/ Ingrid Pollard Ingrid Pollard is a British artist and photographer. Her work uses portraiture photography and traditional landscape imagery to explore social constructs such as Britishness or racial difference. Pollard is associated with Autograph, the Association of Black Photographers. She lives and works in London. http://www.ingridpollard.com/works.html Sonia Boyce Sonia Dawn Boyce, OBE RA, is a British Afro-Caribbean artist, living and working in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study https://www.google.com/search?q=sonia+boyce&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa =X&ved=2ahUKEwj924ab9vzqAhVWUhUIHf4TA68Q_AUoAXoECB8QAw&biw=1565&bih=914 Althea McNish Althea McNish FSCD was a British textile designer of Trinidadian origin who has been called the first British designer of African descent to earn an international reputation. Born in Trinidad, McNish moved to Britain in the 1950s https://www.google.com/search?q=althea+mcnish&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&s a=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0m_H99_zqAhWAShUIHcDwDUUQ_AUoAXoECBcQAw&biw=1565&bih=914 Anwar Shemza Despite being better known as an artist, Shemza published several Urdu novels and books of poetry in the 1950s and wrote plays performed on Radio Pakistan. Shemza was initially influenced by Modernism most notably Paul Klee although later works also showed a traditional Islamic influence. He was also an accomplished printmaker, having his work exhibited at the International Print Biennial in Tokyo. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/anwar-jalal-shemza-14097
Li Yuan-Chia An artist, curator, poet and archivist, Li Yuan-chia ranks among the most original and radical of post-war artists. Born in south China in 1929, Li Yuan-chia studied art in Taiwan where he is considered to have been one of the founding fathers of Chinese abstract painting in the 1950s. Travelling from Taiwan to Italy and then to England, he arrived in London in 1965 to exhibit at Signals gallery and later showed with the Lisson Gallery. After leaving London in 1968, he spent the remainder of his life in Cumbria in northern England where he established the LYC Museum and Art Gallery in his own home. http://www.lycfoundation.org