Ghanaian artist Cornelius Annor "Lost But Found" exhibition in the United States, opens on November 11 at Venus Over Manhattan
Beginning November 11th, Venus Over Manhattan will present an exhibition of new works by Ghanaian artist Cornelius Annor, whose collaged paintings of family photographs draw upon his personal history in Ghana. Entitled “Lost But Found,” the artist’s debut solo exhibition in the United States features twelve works, including new portraits, images of his relatives, and complex narrative scenes. Cornelius Annor: Lost But Found will be on view at Venus through December 18th.
Cornelius Annor paints portraits and figurative works that picture moments of community and intimacy, set in domestic spaces. The artist has a longstanding fascination with the human face, and his works show a focused attention to the expressiveness of various faces and figures. Annor’s paintings typically incorporate segments of fabric, adding to the intimacy and evocativeness of the portraits. The backgrounds of the works often integrate Ghanaian textile patterns, which Annor achieves by transferring a fabric’s dyes onto canvas, establishing an atmosphere of layered memories, emotions, and experiences.
"The advent of photography [allowed for the] archiving of history, memory, testimony and identity..[as] pictures. In post-independence Africa, specifically Ghana where I come from, photography became a new tool to archive our family history, from celebratory moments to [moments where we] part ways.
Many of the paintings in the exhibition depict members of Annor’s immediate and extended family, rendered in moments both casual and significant. Annor derives his compositions from this personal archive of family photographs, each of which was originally framed, composed, and shot by a participant or close observer of the situation depicted. Layered with skeins of paint, bolts of fabric, and rigorous draughtsmanship, Annor’s paintings renovate these referents, merging history with the present. The works on view excavate a personal photographic vernacular, and taken together, telegraph the past through an intimate painterly vision.
Source: Venusovermanhattan.com
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