Lot 333 - Adelaide Damoah - Betwixt and Between Worlds. Detritus III

ARTIST INFO

About 

I am a multidisciplinary artist with an 18 year practice spanning painting, performance and installations. Particular areas of interest for interrogation include colonialism, cultural hybridity, natural cultural hybridity, feminism and joy. 

Education 

Upper second class honours degree in Applied Biology from Kingston university, Surrey, 1999 

Select Exhibitions/Awards 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 
2022 || „Mysteries of Desire“, Fondation H, Paris, France 
2021 || „Radical Joy“, Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt, Germany 
2020 || “Reembodying the Real”, Boogie Wall Gallery, London, UK 
2020 || “Reembodying the Real”, Royal West of England Academy, London 
 
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 
2023|| Rites of Passage. Gagosian, London  
2022|| Small is Beautiful. Flowers Gallery, London 
2022|| Bodies in Trouble. Berlin 
2022|| Royal Academy Summer exhibition. London 
2022|| 5 Needle 5 Wire. The Gallery. London 
2022|| New Anatomies“, FELDBUSCHWIESNERRUDOLPH, Berlin, Germany 
2019 || “Under the Skin”, Royal College of Physicians Museum, London, UK 
2018 || Bonhams. “We Face Forward!” London 
 
COLLECTIONS 
Works in public and private collections nationally and internationally. Including UK Government Art Collection and Fondation H Paris/Madagascar 
 
COLLECTIVES: Founding member BBFA Collective 2015- present. Co-founder: INFEMS Art Collective. 2020- 2022 
ACADEMICIAN: Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, England. 2019 

Gallery Representation 

Sakhile & Me Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany 

Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork 

Betwixt and Between Worlds 2023 
I made a number of works especially for a special exhibition at Gagosian gallery called Rites of Passage. During the process of making the series, 13 were selected for the exhibition. I continued to work on the remaining artworks once the selected 13 were sent to Gagosian and the works donated belong to that group. The entire series is called Betwixt and Between Worlds with each artwork/group of artworks outside of the Gagosian group having a unique subtitle.  
 
Each work was composed of some combination of various images of my great grandmother and grandmother (Ama and Adelaide respectively, 1920) Ama’s parents (using a photo from the late 1800s), my mother (using photos from the 1960s), my adult eyes, colonial maps, a ‘Times’ newspaper cutting titled “The Scramble for Africa” September 1884 (published months before the Berlin conference, which opened in November of that year), and colonial texts from the performances of ‘Into the Mind of the Coloniser’.  
 
The works are embellished with 24 carat gold leaf (referencing the exploitation of Gold Coast minerals), ink mixed with watercolour skin paint made from the discarded skin of a caucasian male art professor called Paul Haywood, and pigment made from discarded guns (both materials made at Col Arts lab in collaboration with Mr Haywood) to hint at the violence of colonialism. The images appear ghostly, like spectres from the past and the colours are bright. I wanted to alchemic(ally) use colourful and beautiful mixtures of elements which hinted at violence and destruction in order to allude to the complexities of our colonial past.  
 
I have used gold leaf and overlapping of images to make geometric patterns and shapes using lines and triangles in these works. The symbolism of triangles, power, stability and femininity are self evident in my opinion. I am much more interested in what those experiencing the artworks see and feel. 

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