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CURRENT EXHIBITION

NOMADIC RESONANCE

5 May - 11 June 2022

“…that most nomadic of all qualities,
the ability to think in diverse and divergent ways.”
- Anthony Sattin

Nomadic Resonance celebrates the launch of Anthony Sattin’s latest book, Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World, by highlighting the broad ranging diversity of work by such artists as El Anatsui, Brion Gysin, Romuald Hazoumè, Rachid Koraïchi, Alexis Peskine, Sylvie Franquet, LR Vandy and Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher.

The exhilarating works included in the show will feature: a new, large-scale work by El Anatsui, who first coined the term ‘nomadic aesthetic’ to indicate the breadth of topological freedoms exhibited by his bottle cap sculptures; examples of scriptorial abstractions by Brion Gysin, which - situated somewhere between Japanese and Arabic calligraphic glyphs – still somehow manage to map the extraordinary freedom of spirit practised by this legendary artist; three, poignant, large vases, from the Lachrymatoires Bleues series, created by Rachid Koraïchi under intense ‘lockdown’ conditions during the pandemic in Barcelona, in 2020; and iconic ‘masks’ made by Romuald Hazoumè from recuperated objects. It was Hazoumè who explained how Yoruba tradition demanded that each aré - or true artist - must travel around and settle amongst other peoples, creating for and learning from them - before again moving on. Each of the ‘itinerant’ artists selected strikes unique resonances from the nomadic aesthetic that Anthony Sattin weaves so eloquently into the pages of his remarkable, new book.

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FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION

SOKARI DOUGLAS CAMP CBE:
Jonkonnu Masquerade

16 June - 23 July 2022

October Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Sokari Douglas Camp CBE that explore the masquerade of ‘Jonkonnu’ both within its Caribbean context and that of the broader African diaspora. This exhibition will coincide with her large-scale steel sculpture Europe Supported by Africa and America being displayed at the V&A to complement the Africa Fashion exhibition, which opens on the 2nd July, 2022. Two more of her larger than life-sized steel sculptures, again relating to the Jamaican Jonkonnu masquerade, will also form part of the Kensington and Chelsea Art Week, from the 23rd June - 3rd July, 2022.

These sculptures are a heady mix of outlandish characters who trace the overlapping links between still-surviving African masquerades, Caribbean carnival traditions and their most recent incarnation on the streets of London, during the colourfully costumed parades of the Notting Hill Carnival. In these exhilarating new works, Sokari Douglas Camp pays homage to the indomitable ‘carnival spirit’ still surviving despite all adversity, as her steel sculptures playfully combine different elements from the interrelated worlds of imaginative masquerades, festival processions and carnival parades. In so doing, they affirm the powerful contribution of the African and Caribbean cultures to the multicultural mix that energises the city of London today.

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RECENT EXHIBITIONS

Aubrey Williams: SUNPHASE - WORKS ON PAPER

17 March -30 April 2022

The work of Aubrey Williams has been increasingly recognised as a uniquely evolved expression of abstraction in Caribbean art. The exhibition Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now at TATE Britain - which opened in 2021- has made Williams a focal point, juxtaposing seminal paintings alongside less familiar pieces. October Gallery presents Sunphase: Works on Paper, an exhibition of works by Aubrey Williams which will run from 17th March – 30th April 2022.

Having represented Williams for almost forty years, October Gallery builds upon the artist’s recent exposure by presenting a range of his works on paper complimented by a small selection of paintings on canvas. Williams’ paper works have not been exhibited as frequently as some of his more monumental canvases, but the works on paper provide a unique opportunity to view the ways in which the artist developed his ideas and techniques through a different medium. It is evident that these approaches he translated to his large-scale canvases. The works that feature in this exhibition span the artist’s career, from early gouaches in the 1960s—many of which have never been publicly shown — to several of his final evocative acrylics on paper.

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EXPANDING HORIZONS

3 February - 12 March 2022

Expanding Horizons pays homage to writer, curator and art historian Pamela Kember, who ardently championed Asian art in the U.K. and further afield.

A body of new works by Govinda Sah ‘Azad’ will be included in this exhibition. In his paintings Sah effortlessly balances traditional eastern metaphysical insights about the nature of reality with visual realisations that are in accord with the latest formulations of contemporary western science. He imagines a cosmos of boundless possibilities. A painter of tempestuous skies and cosmic explosions as well as an avid admirer of J. M. W. Turner, Sah followed in the footsteps of the Romanticist, and now lives and works in Margate.

Tian Wei is renowned for his striking monochromatic canvases in bold colours that explore the written word and the plasticity of meaning. Words and quotations in minute script fill the backdrop of Tian’s paintings, forming a patterned ground on which larger semi-abstract shapes are drawn. The cursive lines spell out simple English words, such as ‘soul’ and ‘red.’ These selected English adjectives and nouns represented in Chinese calligraphic style give the viewer insight into the artist’s lived experience of an emerging synergy between eastern and western sensibilities.

Jukhee Kwon creates works from the printed page quite literally; using abandoned and disused books, she shreds the pages by hand to create magnificent ‘book sculptures.’ The sculptures brim with energy, often flowing out of books in the form of cascading waterfalls. Each book, while destroyed, claims a new life and existence through creation.

As Head of Arts and Learning at Asia House Pamela Kember was instrumental in collaborations between Asia House and October Gallery. Several of Jukhee Kwon’s works were installed at Asia House in collaboration with Kember this included The Book of Galileo (2014) which was created by the artist for the 2014 edition of Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival.

Kenji Yoshida’s monumental works consist of ethereal gold, silver and precious metals on canvas which unite a restrained tradition of Japanese applique work with that of an abstract modernist aesthetic. In 1964, Yoshida moved to Paris, the acknowledged centre of Modernism. This move brought Yoshida’s work into contact with the great artistic movements of the time. He was confronted by the heady shock of the Abstract Expressionists, in particular Rothko and Motherwell, who both employ similarly abstract forms in striving for the transcendent spirituality that characterises Yoshida’s art.

In 1993, Kenji Yoshida became the first living artist ever to be given a solo exhibition at the Japanese Galleries of the British Museum, London, UK. October Gallery has presented regular exhibitions of Yoshida’s work since the late 1980s.

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