LouSimone Guirandou Gallery de la foire d’art contemporain ART X Lagos from 2 to 9 December 2020.  The gallery will present a new selection of artworks from three confirmed and emerging artists Ablade Glover, Nù Barreto and Sess Essoh. 

Due to the global health crisis, this year ART X Lagos propose a 100% online edition.

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ABLADE GLOVER 

Ablade Glover lives and works in Accra. He is a graduate of the Central School of Art and Design in London, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Ohio State University.

Ablade Glover's favourite themes are constant, the woman established in her role as mother, sister, confidante, wife. The market scenes which, in his eyes, link the village and the town, the past and the present, the crowds and finally the landscapes. His compositions seem abstract at first glance, but from a distance they are very realistic, teeming with life and colour. His technique and his way of pasting paint in thick layers with knife strokes reflect a very Western style and classicism.

Using the warm hues of his country, he depicts vibrant scenes of Ghanaian life.

His works are in many public and private collections including the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (Accra, Ghana), the Commonwealth Foundation (London, UK), the Royal Collection of Prince and Princess Takamado (Tokyo, Japan), UNESCO Headquarters (Paris, France), the World Bank (Washington DC, USA) and the AAI African American Institute Head Office (New York, USA).

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NU BARRETO

Born in São Domingos (Guinea-Bissau), Nù Barreto lives and works in Paris (France). He graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Métiers d'Image des Gobelins (Paris) in 1996.

Eager to return to his home country, Guinea-Bissau, as soon as it regains political stability, he uses strong symbolism expressed in shapes, colours and motifs to draw attention to the many scourges that afflict and gangrene his country and the entire African continent - poverty, suffering and discrimination - so often leading his youth on the dangerous roads of exile.

Nù Barreto's work is based on a mixed technique combining drawing, collage and recuperation. The artist integrates the spectator in his artistic approach through the use of painting, photography, drawing and video.

Internationally known and recognised for his talent and his work since his first exhibitions in 1997, the works of Nù Barreto are exhibited throughout the world (Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Spain, United States of America, France, Portugal, Switzerland, ...).

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SESS ESSOH

Born in Dabou (Côte d’Ivoire), Sess Essoh lives and works in Abidjan. A graduate of the Atelier d'Art mural de l'École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Abidjan in 2012, Sess Essoh is developing a transversal practice at the crossroads of painting, collage and poetry.

Like a manifesto, his use and handling of words embodies his personality and reveals his great freedom of expression in his artistic practice.

Refusing to be categorised, he deploys a wide range of techniques which he uses to promote a free and unconstrained discourse. Always in search of new media, the unusual or ephemeral materials he uses (denim, plastic, notebooks, etc.) give his works a unique character and a strong emotional charge.

Sess Essoh uses a process of collages and graphemes that he places either on panels such as doors, cardboard supports or on the handwritten pages of a history textbook. These graphemes call upon our collective memory to go beyond pretences to explore new horizons, another chapter of History.