LONDON.- October Gallery presents a solo exhibition of striking sculptures by internationally renowned artist and sculptor, Sokari Douglas Camp CBE. Bringing together large and smaller scale steel sculptures alongside selected prints, Douglas Camp, as in previous exhibitions, mines the historical records of earlier visual artists to examine power, commerce and colonialism within a broad Caribbean and, by extension, African context.

Drawing inspiration from Robert S. DuPlessis’ groundbreaking book The Material Atlantic, Douglas Camp explores clothing, commerce and emblems of wealth as reflected in fashion and dress. Fascinated by an 18th century illustration, entitled ‘Free Natives of Dominica’, depicting three figures dressed in western clothing, her intricately worked metal sculpture brings this two-dimensional plate to vivid life in the round. Other smaller-scale sculptures depict two or three stylishly-dressed figures captured in animated conversation, all wearing extravagant headdresses that reflect laws (such as the 18th century Code Tignon) which required that women of colour, whether free or enslaved, cover their hair in a cloth called the tignon. This blatant attempt to deny to women of colour the same freedoms accorded to their white sisters, backfired when the outrageously creative headdresses sported by black and creole women were so admired, as to become an à la mode fashion in their own right. Besides reflecting on fashion, style and beauty, Douglas Camp adds further flourishes to these works using old coins, from both England and Nigeria to add symbols of value and commerce to these multi-layered and often subversive narratives. The sculptures offer wry commentaries on the accumulation of colonial wealth, money and trade as well as the creativity shown in displaying coded symbols of material prosperity—-or, in its absence imaginative flair—-as fashionable ornaments. Furthermore, by delving into her own Nigerian family’s complex dress code, Douglas Camp deftly plays upon imbuing fabrics and modes of dress with new meanings.

With these exhilarating new works presenting an impressive selection of motifs including dazzling displays of flowers and fruit, including a lively depiction of the tropical pineapple, Douglas Camp observes how people of diverse ethnicities, social positions and occupations impacted the emergence of a distinctive sartorial culture across the Atlantic world. Commenting upon these imaginative displays, Douglas Camp notes that, “As a woman, I notice how colonised peoples and women of the diaspora cope; how they fashion their own styles, using whatever materials are to hand; how they forge a self-image that, by imitating and subverting their oppressors’ images of them, creates something that remains uniquely their own.” These latest sculptures tease out the complex intertwining histories of trade, colonialism and lineage, while simultaneously celebrating the resilience of the people of Africa and the African diaspora throughout the globe.