FIGURE THIS I & II
Residency Exhibition 12 October – January 2024
Aniela Preston
Annan Affotey
Edna Baud
Helena Stiasny
Jakub Czyz
Julia Kowalska
Nahom Teklehaimanot
Olatubosun Samson Rotimi
Preslav Kostov
Curated by Elaine ML Tam
Kravitz Contemporary is pleased to present ‘figure this’, a two-part project in close collaboration with UK-based patrons of the arts, the Kowitz Family, and the Noldor Art Residency in Ghana. The five awarded residency artists hailing from East Europe and West Africa are each informed and indebted to the tradition of figurative painting, but also visibly fraternise with its subversion.
The body, at once unique and universal to the human condition, commands both unity and diversity within the discourse of representation. The figure, as a topic, provides us with a nuanced exploration of the artists’ lived and cultural experiences.
Julia Kawalska
Untitled, 2023
Oil on canvas
140 × 120 cm
A single painting by Julia Kowalska, for example, involves a composition that largely consists of a forehead in startling, luminous pink, crowned by white hair. Depicting only a tightly cropped portion of the face, the work absurdly abstracts the figure, heightening the mystery and presence of the ethereal subject.
Aniela Preston
The Price of Vanity, 2023
Oil on canvas
90 x 90 cm
The figure is elsewhere otherwise framed – drawing inspiration from Renaissance painters such as Carlo Crivelli, Aniela Preston situates the body in relation to apertures and architectural perspective. Skillfully rendered with a beauty intended to sustain looking, Preston collapses styles and periods to address long-standing societal and environmental concerns.
Aniela Preston
There is No Justice, 2023
Oil on canvas
51 x 59.5 cm
The body, at once unique and universal to the human condition, commands both unity and diversity within the discourse of representation. Taking principal role in oeuvres of the residency artists, the figure provides us with a nuanced exploration of the artists’ lived and cultural experiences, lending renewed meaning to the notion of selfhood.
Nahom Teklehaimanot
The Ice-Cream, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
203 x 180 cm
In Nahom Teklehaimanot’s paintings, collaged forms allow for a multi-perspectival view onto a single scene. One such work departs from Rainer Fetting’s The Kiss (1990), which challenges its viewer with an exchange of gazes in the midst of this intimate experience. The canvas itself becomes a contested site, where airbrushed haze both meets, and is interrupted by, the sharp relief of a painted paper edge.
Annan Affotey
Joseph, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
21 x 29.5 cm
Annan Affotey
Toni, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
21 x 29.5 cm
Annan Affotey
Maame Yaa, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
21 x 29.5 cm
Annan Affotey’s striking works of portraiture, on the other hand, see friends and icons in the African cultural landscape such as Joseph Awuah-Darko and Maame Yaa taking centrestage. Occu- pying the canvases in different poses, the details of their clothes and body language is suggestive of traits unique to each individual, though the gazes they return to their viewers are all resolute, if not challenging.
In contrast, new ‘Untitled’ sculptures by Jakub Czyz offer an articulation of the body by different means. His latex works hang flaccid around the gallery space; some of these resemble death masks and, in so doing, refer to the mold as a true portrait and memento. Another, in its deflation, alludes to the body-as-carrier or the human skin as a sort of bag.
Jakub Czyz
Untitled, 2023,
Latex and cast plaster Dimensions variable
Jakub Czyz
Untitled, 2023
Cast plaster
approx 23 x 18 x 35 cm
Jakub Czyz
Untitled, 2023
Silicone mechanical toy Dimensions variable
Romantic and ruinous, the human figure is marred by its conscription to a canon that, in its re- petition of sameness, has failed to recognise and celebrate difference. Offering a sm all ge sture of correction to this, both the residency and exhibition seek to provide myriad perspectives on the representation of the human form, the mortal flesh that weds us to our sense of worldly belonging.
Preslav Kostov
Crosswind, 2023
Oil on canvas
150 x 120 cm
Crosswind by Preslav Kostov likewise sees to the uncanny union of painterly techniques; partial male bodies are made and unmade by dynamic swathes of paint, invoking the movement studies of Eadweard Muybridge. A partial body, decapitated by its frame even, is the sole agent of Edna Baud’s painting, one charged with the cinematic drama of film noir.
Aniela Preston
The Secret Sadness of Independence
Oil on Canvas
80x60cm
Helena Stiasy
Exemplary Student, 2021 Oil on canvas
120 x 80 cm
Olatubosun Samson Rotini
We all need someone II, 2023
Oil paint, old photograph and acrylic on canvas
90.1 x 106 cm
Exemplary Student by Helena Stiasy, on the other hand, is a classic study of portrait which mimics a grade school yearbook photograph – a standardised practice made intimate by the fact it depicts the art- ist’s mother. Similarly, Olatubosun Samson Rotini and Annan Affotey’s striking works of portraiture see friends and icons in the African cultural land- scape taking centrestage. Occupying the canvases in different poses, the details of their clothes and body language is suggestive of traits unique to each indi- vidual, though the gazes they return to their viewers are all resolute, if not challenging.
Edna Baud
Midnight Drive, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
100 x 100 cm
A partial body, decapitated by its frame even, is the sole agent of Edna Baud’s painting, one charged with the cinematic drama of film noir.
Annan Affotey
Otis Kwame Quaicoe
Acrylic on Canvas
120x100cm
Annan Affotey
Laetita KY, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 100 cm