NYAB Event - George Afedzi Hughes “Collisions”

George Afedzi Hughes “Collisions”

Skoto Gallery

This event has ended.

Skoto Gallery presents Collisions, an exhibition of recent paintings by the Ghanaian-born artist George Afedzi Hughes. This will be his second solo show at the gallery.

George Afedzi Hughes’s recent work uses art as a tool for cultural provocation, by challenging contemporary systems of order and engaging notions of violence, including the consequences of misused power. He utilizes creative processes that reactivate imagery through a variety of media in which elements from diverse sources such as war machinery, military uniforms with epaulettes, automobiles, colonial / historical references are charged with meaning.

A specter of violence and raw power emanate from the pictures in this exhibition, and for the
artist, the use of violent narratives is a civil necessity if the objective is to speak against violence. There is a visual resonance in his work that encourages us to probe into the nature of the world we live in. The show entreats us to redefine interpersonal relations, revealing truths about both predatory forces and victims, as well as eschew society’s permanent state of siege and man’s readiness to use violence in all it’s ramifications.

George Afedzi Hughes’s work is dense with visual complexity that reflects an awareness of a vast array of both formal and inherited traditions. He combines strong compositional qualities, with unique simultaneous figuration and abstraction. The new works reveal an acute awareness of the diversity, contradictions and complexity of modern society as he explores the tension between contained pictorial energy and boundless space.

George Afedzi Hughes was born 1962 in Sekondi, Ghana. He obtained his BA in Painting (1989) and an MA in Art Education (1991) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. In 1994 he moved to the United States, where he later received his MFA in Painting / Drawing from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, (2001). Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Painting at the Visual Studies Department, SUNY at Buffalo, New York. Although Painting is an integral part of his creative œuvre, his artistic activities also include assemblage, performance art and poetry. His work has been exhibited internationally in countries such as Germany, Portugal, England, Holland, China, Denmark, France, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ghana. He is included in the upcoming exhibition ‘Futbol: the Beautiful Game’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), curated by Franklin Sirmans, February 2nd - July 20th, 2014. His work is represented in several private and public collections in Africa, Europe and the United States.