Engaged with Traditional African Art

Art that draws on the masks, carving, textiles, body arts and sign systems of sub-Saharan African traditions.

No works indexed yet · 10 related artists

No open-access works for Engaged with Traditional African Art are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.

About

Artists engaged with traditional African art draw on the carved figures, masks, textiles, body arts and graphic systems made across sub-Saharan Africa. The dialogue runs deeper than the early 20th-century European craze for masks, and many of its strongest voices are African. In Nigeria, Ben Enwonwu's bronze Anyanwu (1954–55) gave an Igbo sun deity the poise of court sculpture, and artists at Nsukka, led by Uche Okeke, revived the curving uli line painted on walls and bodies.

Contemporary artists often remake the mask from new materials. Romuald Hazoumè in Benin builds faces from cut plastic petrol cans, and Gonçalo Mabunda in Mozambique welds thrones and masks from weapons decommissioned after the civil war. Victor Ekpuk develops the nsibidi sign system of south-eastern Nigeria into flowing drawings, Wole Lagunju paints Yoruba Gelede masks onto figures from European portraiture, and Matthew Angelo Harrison seals historical carvings inside blocks of clear resin.