James Barnor’s work is remarkable but not just for the lifespan of years recording culture around the world. In Barnor’s work you can feel the richness of life behind the portraits.
Archive: articles
Jennifer Packer at Serpentine Galleries London
Packer has previously said she has contemplated the devotion and fixation artists put into the process of creating. As such the show’s name is derived from a scripture in the Bible, “All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing”.
Christabel Johanson writes about the American artist Jennifer Packer.
Jess, 2018. Photo Jason Wyche. Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York
First published: February 6, 2021
Simone Leigh
By working with the energy of this truth in her work rather than historical fact, Leigh reclaims the narrative and space independent from the timeline of colonialisation. In this way she achieves the eponymous state of “sovereignty”.
Christabel Johanson on Simone Leigh
Last Garment, 2022.
First published: November 6, 2022
Aubrey Williams and the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM)
As powerful and impactful as Williams’ work was at the time – and as successful as he was as a solo artist – it is in relation to his work and service within the CAM that we can appreciate the movement as an act of political and social change. Through the members own creative talents CAM drove for a better representation of Caribbean life, art and community. Outwardly it reflected the culture of the time; it rebelled against white supremacy in Britain, brought its own flavour from back home and together sought to merge the two – much like the ethos of the Notting Hill Carnival.
Christabel Johanson about Aubrey Williams and the Caribbean Artists Movement
Sun Hieroglyph, 1983, ©Aubrey Williams Estate. Photo: Jonathan Greet
First published: October 6, 2018
Romuald Hazoumè
Hazoumè states he isn’t just satirising African politicians. His discourse is focused on international figures who embody global corruption. These masks are a nod at the scandal surrounding the Panama and Pandora Papers, wherein offshore wealth was also “masked” by the elites.