Africa’s Contemporary art mirrors contemporary culture and society, offering teachers, students, and general audiences a rich resource through which to consider current ideas and rethink the familiar. On artist folds his self-portraits into vibrant commentaries on current events, at once humorous and urgent. Another his self-portraits into vibrant commentaries on current events, at once humorous and urgent.
Using their creations??to interpret and portray Africa???s socio-economic realities, political challenges, rich traditions, and diverse beauty, we profile a few contemporary African artists you should know.
Tracey Rose – South Africa
Tracey Rose??is an established contemporary multimedia artist and outspoken feminist.??Rose confronts the politics of identity, including sexual, body, racial, and gender issues and her themes??often convey her multicultural ancestry and the experience of her mixed-race reality in??South Africa.
Ch??ri Samba – Democratic Republic of Congo
A leading contemporary African painter,??Ch??ri Samba???s??paintings reveal the artist???s??perception of daily life in the??Democratic Republic of Congo.??Samba???s paintings became characteristically known for their ???word bubbles???,??which allowed the artist to incorporate??written??commentary in his works ?????now recognizable as the?????Samba signature???.
Abdoulaye Konat?? – Mali
Treating textiles as a limitless palette, Konat?? dyes, cuts, sews, and embroideries scraps of cotton and traditional??Bazin??fabric to produce his signature monumental tapestries.??His major works have focused on the political tensions surrounding the Sahel region, and, since the start of the millennium, on the devastating impact of AIDS on Malian society.
El Anatsui – Ghana
A professor in the Sculpture Department at the University of Nigeria and a prolific sculptor himself, Anatsui???s preferred media are clay and wood, which he uses to create objects expressing various social, political, and historical concerns. In his later works, he???s turned to installation art and sewing processes. Using unconventional materials??such as chainsaws and power tools, he has reshaped and repurposed everything from??railway sleepers to driftwood and aluminum bottle tops.
Peju Alatise – Nigeria
This??Nigerian artist, poet, writer and a fellow at the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution.??Her works have captured the joys and pains of womanhood as experienced in modern-life-African traditions with their consequences. Her subject matter has evolved with her continued experiences moving her focus from advocating the equal rights of women to politics and philosophical inclination.
Ibrahim El Salahi – Sudan
Widely considered the??godfather of African modernism,??Ibrahim El Salahi??has created over five decades of visionary artworks in his own brand of??Surrealism split between Arab and African origins. He has??s developed his own??unique art history, a pioneer on??many art fronts; he was one of the first artists??to elaborate Arabic calligraphy in his paintings, and the first African artist to obtain??a Tate Modern retrospective.
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