1-54 London: Contemporary African Art Fair Somerset House

Souad Abdelrassoul (Egyptian, b. 1974), Lives and works in Cairo

Souad Abdelrassoul’s practice spans various media, incorporating drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design. Working between the abstract and figurative, she intertwines human, animal and vegetal forms, believing we are all intrinsically connected to the earth. Tree-like figures with branching veins and arteries, and giant insect-like creatures, merge on her canvases to remind the viewer of the vital bond between our internal lives and the exterior world we live in.

Adopting a surrealist touch, Abdelrassoul’s paintings exalt in the feminine and the emotional. They explore the idea of the modern woman, informed by her own experiences of living within a patriarchal society. Many of her motifs address these issues, whilst also making reference to artists and practices that she admires. Reflecting on her experiences as a mother, Abdelrassoul draws attention to the ways women evolve and adapt in oppressive environments. Often using familiar myths and legends, she paints stories through her figures that question the roles women hold in society and cultural history in disruptive and thought-provoking ways. By reconceptualizing perceptions of space, she repurposes notions of form, science and nature into strikingly personal configurations.

Abdelrassoul graduated with a BFA in 1998 from El Minya University and in 2005 completed her master’s degree in History of Art. In 2012 she completed her PhD in Modern Art History. Since 1998 she has exhibited frequently in group and solo exhibitions in Cairo, as well in Nairobi, Beirut and the USA. Her recent exhibitions include: A Never Ending Longing, Cromwell Place, London, 2022; Behind the River, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, 2021; East African Encounters, Cromwell Place, London, 2021. She has exhibited at international art fairs in London, Dubai, Marrakech and at The Armory Show in New York. In 2022 her painting The Magician (2021) was acquired by the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. She is also represented in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusettes, USA. Abdelrassoul features in 300 Great Women Painters published in 2022 by Phaidon Press. In 2022 her work was displayed on a banner outside the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre in London.

Sujay Shah (Kenyan, b. 1991), Lives and works in Nairobi

Sujay Shah’s practice reflects on intermingled cultural ideologies, myths and histories, and questions how we can cope with the colonial pasts that are built into our surroundings. In his recent paintings, Shah deconstructs, satirises and critiques some of the harmful legacies of colonialism through the lens of big game trophy hunting. The presence of certain objects in Kenyan homes, country clubs and Safari lodges, such as skin rugs and mounted animal heads, serve as haunting reminders of this violent history. In his fictitious dioramas and still lives, acts of brutality go side by side with luxury items, such as Victorian objects, silverware and candelabras, challenging notions of what it means to be "civilised”. Intertwining horror, humour and surrealism, the exasperated animals are subjected to various states of disrespect, further undermining and trivialising the convoluted nature of these hunts. By referring to aspects of museum display, different moments are merged into a single image, analogous to how the perception and romance of Africa has been fabricated, exoticized and stereotyped: images which still perpetuate and haunt us today.

Shah graduated with a BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2013. After college he lived in New York, working as a studio assistant for artists Paul Bloodgood and Anne Chu. Shah has exhibited in the US – in Savannah, Georgia and New York – and in France. His work is featured in the permanent collection of the Savannah College of Art and Design. In Kenya, his group exhibitions include Fictions, Circle Art Gallery, 2022; Various Small Fires, Circle Art Gallery, 2021; I Will See What I Want To See, Circle Art Gallery, 2019; If Not Now, the Cave Bureau, 2018. In 2022 he was awarded a Venice travel fellowship by Wangechi Mutu Studio and did a residency at 32 Degrees East, Uganda in 2023. He had his first solo exhibition Forgive us for our Skins at Circle Art Gallery's new space in 2023.

Tiemar Tegene (Ethiopian, b. 1994), Lives and works in Addis Ababa

Tiemar Tegene’s works are anchored in her training as a printmaker, expanding etching processes into monoprinting through spontaneous experiments, most often using household items and their textures. Rather than producing numbered editions struck from the same plate, each work falls outside of fixed description as Tegene finds new ways to press the texture of an image through the application of ink onto the page. Additions of coloured pencil forge repeating icons and patterns, becoming increasingly abstracted whilst adding layers of personal narratives.

Channelling an intimate and complex response to the world around her, Tegene’s compositions are transmutations of her emotional experiences and the nature of her relationships with others. Inside these images live the details and echoes of larger stories, whether relayed in confidence by a friend, overheard on the street, or drawn from song lyrics or film. Consolidating ‘real’ details with flourishes of reference and imagination, her portraiture reaches for specific and consuming emotional moments, that ripple through the body and space.

Tegene received a BFA in Printmaking from the Allé School of Fine Arts & Design in Addis Ababa. Her work has been exhibited in Ethiopia at the National Museum of Ethiopia, Alliance Ethio-Francaise and at the Gebre Kristos Desta Centre, and internationally, at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and James Fuentes Gallery, New York, well as a series of public murals commissioned in the city of Addis Ababa. She has featured in the group exhibitions Fictions, Circle Art Gallery, 2022 and Addis Contemporary II, Circle Art Gallery, 2021. In 2023, she had her first solo exhibition at Circle Shertan Weha.

Agnes Waruguru (Kenyan, b. 1994), Lives and works in Amsterdam

Agnes Waruguru is interested in everyday materials, especially those associated with the home and daily routines. Her practice is a weaving of slow meditative processes and quick reactive moments, at once formal and abstract, drawing together process and craft. Many of her works reference women’s practices, traditional cultural identifiers and personal identity politics as modes to engage with memory, place and expanding notions of home moving between Kenya the country of her birth and her adopted homes. She draws from personal experience to create new landscapes which can often be memory or emotionscapes that invite the viewer to look slowly, imagine and speculate. Two of the three artworks presented at this year’s fair, Searching (Passageways) and Time is Passing, are part of an ongoing body of work titled Water Memories, a return to the idea that water never forgets, and always remembers.

Waruguru received a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, USA. Her work has been exhibited in America, the Ivory Coast, France, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and Kenya. She has participated in residencies in Kenya, at the Saba Artists Residency in Lamu and in Sydney, Australia. Waruguru participated in the inaugural edition of the Stellenbosch Triennale, South Africa in 2020 and had her first solo show Small Things to Consider at Circle Art Gallery later that same year. In 2022 she was nominated for the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prize and will be showing at the 22nd Biennial Sesc–Videobrasil in Sao Paulo from 25th October 2023. She recently completed a residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.