Online artist talk: Sokari Douglas Camp
Elysium Gallery invites you to the latest of our special series of online talks.
Topic: Material Matters Talk 4
Time: Apr 30th, 2024 7:00 PM Wales time
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84347040662
Meeting ID: 843 4704 0662
Material Matters is curated by Sarah Tombs featuring Sokari Douglas Camp, Lee Grandjean, Marie-Therese Ross and Andrew Sabin.
Material Matters explores the relationship of process and materiality, how through experimentation and manipulation the sculptor is able to generate sculptural objects whose content and motivations are accessible to an audience.
Sokari Douglas Camp was born in Buguma, Nigeria, in1958, and lives and works in London, UK. She first exhibited at October Gallery in 1985. She has had more than forty solo shows worldwide and in 2005 Douglas Camp was awarded a CBE in recognition of her services to art. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA; Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; and the British Museum, London, UK. In 2012, her large sculpture, All the World is Now Richer, a memorial to commemorate the abolition of slavery was exhibited in The House of Commons and then, in 2014, at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
2016, Douglas Camp brought together major new sculptures which focussed on the reinterpretation of familiar figures from the European classical tradition as depicted by Botticelli and William Blake. ‘Europe Supported by Africa and America’ at the V&A to complement the Africa Fashion exhibition. The monumental steel sculpture was on view in the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries until 14th May 2023.
Douglas Camp transforms oil drums and fabricates steel into figurative sculpture that is often rooted in African culture where the artist was born. Her work is highly coloured, and uses pattern, textile and decorative elements. Rather than designing and laser cutting Camp ‘draws’ patterns by hand using a blowtorch cutting into the steel sheet.
She describes her work as ‘the joy of making’, however her work is also political and rooted in African culture, her use of oil drums to create beauty is a conscious and poignant statement of the Niger Delta’s oil production and is one of the most polluted places in the world.
Douglas Camp will be taking part in Ichihara Art Mix 2024 Japan
Exhibition Preview: Friday 29th March 7pm.
Exhibition continues until Saturday 11th May.
Opening hours: Wednesday – Sat 11am – 7pm
