Sess Essoh’s Collage Paintings Amplify Africa’s Revolutionary History

In his most modern overall body of perform, Sess Essoh reanimates figures from Black African record in his vivid collaged canvases. Working with thread, shade, and paste, Essoh’s operates embed these unique histories inside of a cohesive narrative house to develop a collective understanding of their effect.

The artist—who was born in Toupah, Côte d’Ivoire, and been given his MFA in art from the National School of Good Arts in close by Abidjan—is now producing his German solo demonstrate debut with “Homage” at Galerie Melbye-Konan, which is on see by March 31st. Previous year, Essoh’s summary combined-media paintings offered out at modern day African artwork honest 1-54, at the booth of his gallery LouiSimone Guirandou, which co-signifies him together with Galerie Melbye-Konan. Now, in a new collection, “Homage,” Essoh produces collages with substantial figures from Africa’s previous, adding to an alternate collective memory past usual colonial narratives.

In his portray Myriam Makeba and Queen A’ Nzinga of Angola (2022), Essoh collages printed photos of two well known southern African women of all ages: civil legal rights activist and singer Miriam Makeba, who protested towards South African apartheid and the 17th-century chief of what is now northern Angola, Queen Nzinga, renowned for her armed service resistance in opposition to the Portuguese.

Using a marouflage procedure, Essoh juxtaposes illustrations or photos of these two wonderful women, divided by geography and generations, onto a vivid canvas dominated by pink and peach hues. Black pastel traces, scribbles, and a faceless determine overlay these collaged photos. In Essoh’s get the job done, Africa’s earlier of woman resistance and revolt is memorialized, with these forceful faces showing dress in and tear like concert posters.

“I locate old guides that are no more time published,” Essoh claimed last year. “I dilemma modern society, history, improvements.” The artist, who is also a author, continues to be fascinated by how social gatherings are recorded and shared globally, noting the inclination for Euro-American audiences to dismiss and erase Black African histories. In the long run, his paintings use quotation and day-to-day resources to develop different narratives, rewriting Africa’s heritage as a person of riot versus colonial oppression. Memory, he says, can be fragile.

Essoh’s desire in the development of collective memory was partially affected by his father’s routine of retaining a daily diary. For the artist, journaling is a way of ritually reinterpreting existence by recording it—this impressed him to use social imagery, narrative, and histories in his artwork to make perception of a private face.