VENICE.- Victoria Miro Projects has launched an online presentation by Richard Ayodeji Ikhide, featuring a new series of paintings by the London based Nigerian artist. This is the second project in an ongoing series of occasional presentations by invited international artists on Vortic.
‘In my drawings I’m imagining certain histories that weren’t given the chance to be told.’ – Richard Ayodeji Ikhide
Ideas of creation and personal mythology entwine with influences ranging from William Blake, Japanese illustration and ancestral Yoruba mark-making in Ikhide’s elaborate watercolour paintings, which look at cultural histories and possibilities for the future.
Drawing as a continual act of recording is fundamental to Ikhide’s practice. Complex and enigmatic, his paintings weave figures with artefacts from the ancient past and observations from daily life, to form newly imagined narratives set in what he terms a ‘future-past’. Stylistically, Ikhide has also sited comic-artist Moebius as having a significant impact on his practice and echoes of this can be seen in his meticulous drawing, which sits alongside his open, shifting watercolour forms.
Speaking about these works the artist says, ‘I’ve called the characters in these paintings “The Guild of Makers”. I am interested in the importance of how artifacts created by unknown artisans become portals to ancient civilizations… My guild of characters, including Osere Okunrin (The Artist), Olorin Okunrin (The Musician) and Awon Eda (Creations), explore these ideas but are also an extension of parts of myself. Having them engaged in different creative acts was a way to open up and de-mystify the studio process, to show the focus, discipline and different psycho-emotional states.’
The various figures and typologies explored in these works involve the Jungian idea of the mask as a persona or way to bring forth other parts of the self, the artist, the studio, the musician (playing an instrument from a South African tribe and using the oldest mathematical tool in the Congo), the ceramicist, and the veil (referring to the Veil of Veronica in Hans Memling’s painting) and its equivalent in the traditions and cultures of ancient societies. Further references to a dye pit used in Nigeria to make batik fabrics, a Sumerian tablet, and a selection of African, Mesoamerican, Greek and Janus figures pepper these images, along with allusions to memes, metadata and the digitisation of information from the analogue.
Grounding this body of work is the artist’s thinking around how humans preserve their culture and heritage through artistic mediums and methods, bequeathing the artisan the role as the recorder of the structure and customs of civilisations, from ancient times to modern day. He explains, ‘I think about an object as a network of creating a new language or lexicon to develop new hybrid meanings – because the future will influence the past as well.’
Born 1991 in Lagos, Nigeria. Lives and works in London, UK
Richard Ayodeji Ikhide was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1991 and currently lives and works in London, UK. He is a graduate of the Royal Drawing School. In 2022, Ikhide’s work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Candice Madey, New York and Galerie Bernhard, Zürich. Recent selected solo presentations of his work also include Mythmaking, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021); Future Past, V.O Curations, London (2021); and Osmosis, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2019). In addition, his work has been included in several group exhibitions including Prospect and Refuge, Sim Smith, London (2022); Assemble, V.O Curations, London (2021); No horizon, no edge to liquid, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2020); For the Many, Not the Few, Guts Gallery, online; Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London (2018); and Best Drawing of the Year 2018, Christie’s, London (2017). His work has been acquired by the Royal Collection Trust.
