All three artists are being shown at a Portuguese gallery for the very first time
A new exhibition entitled “Rhythm Colours” is opening on April 7 at Loulé’s In the Pink gallery. The invited artists are Saïdou Dicko, Derrick Ofosu Boateng and Thandiwe Muriu.
Photography is a powerful tool for transporting viewers to new and different places. And, with this ability, it often seems as if the sounds, scents and textures present in the images are genuinely felt.
In the exhibition “Rhythm of Colours”, the selection of artworks explores this extraordinary trait, as their voluptuous and intense hues usher a sort of beat that transforms compositions into something more than just visual, towards a tuneful territory.
Through their works, the artists investigate a bountiful imagery that brings the audience closer to the rumbling noises of busy streets, the joyful melody of children playing, roaring drums in the distance, the poetic silences of a family home’s backyard or the tempo in waves crashing the shore.
With vivid colours, concealed characters and contrasting textures, their artworks create a visual score that invites the public to examine the images in an immersive gesture.
In this process, the exhibition and the artists introduce a diverse set of ideas that evoke our emotions. The artists both challenge and embrace elements of their own traditions with aims to ultimately discover collective and individual innovative ways of understanding the world.
Dicko, Boateng and Muriu works stem also from a collective African cultural background, sharing a common pioneering practice in the photographic medium, however complex, plural, and distinctive the continent may be.
In this sense, the artworks gathered in the exhibition depict people and places not only from their stunning visual aspect, but also as belonging to full sensorial experiences. That is when the plentiful tones in the colours become also musical tones, as they portray a memory of affection as well as an idea of something still to come.
All three artists are being shown at a Portuguese gallery for the very first time, Muriu in exclusive collaboration with 193 Gallery, Paris.
About the artists
Saïdou Dicko (Burkina Faso, 1979) is a self-taught multimedia artist that started drawing from an early age, when he was still a shepherd in the Shahel, by outlining the shadows of animals and plants on the ground.
His work in the photographic series “Shadowed People” assembles different local patterns, settings, and objects from his homeland culture, inserting human figures as shadows in heavy black paint.
In this pictorial exercise, Dicko provides with a universal perspective on matters of equality, conciliation, freedom, identity, or humanity with a unique poetry that also entails some whimsical mystery.
The works are also marked with a detail in red and black that hints to the traditional Fula fabrics’ patterns.
Saïdou Dicko has participated in numerous exhibitions, biennials and art fairs in France, Morocco, Germany, Brazil, USA, Portugal, Mali, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy, Senegal, among others.
Derrick Ofosu Boateng (Ghana, 1999) is a young artist who started in photography through social media and with much support from his father, who gifted Boateng with an iPhone in a gesture of endorsement of his artistic talent.
This device is still used by the artist for the flexibility it enables when capturing daily scenes in Boateng’s hometown, Accra.
The explosion of colours and textures in the works send a direct message on shifting the negative mainstream perception of African societies towards an understanding of the boasting liveliness and the energetic creativity of the cultural landscapes in the continent.
Derrick Boateng actively commits with presenting a positive overview, opposite to the general media, of the people represented in his pictures, along with their pride and beauty.
Despite his recent artistic practice, in 2021 Derrick Boateng won the Global Peace Photo Award. He has also participated in exhibitions and art fairs in London, Basel, Paris, Miami, Amsterdam, and Brussels. His work was also commissioned for a public art exhibition at St James’s Market Pavilion in London, as well as for the album’s cover of internationally acclaimed rapper Common.
Thandiwe Muriu (Kenya, 1990) started her professional career at only 17 in Nairobi as a commercial photographer in the advertising industry, where she boldly made a name for herself. Her journey in artistic photography was stimulated by questions around self-perception, the role of women in society and the place of tradition, after operating for a long time in a male-dominated industry.
Thus, Muriu’s works display a vivid aesthetic, on a colourful, reflective journey through her world as a woman living in modern Kenya as she reinterprets Contemporary African Portraiture. Thandiwe Muriu has participated in exhibitions and art fairs in Nairobi, London, Paris, Venice, Geneva, Miami, Amsterdam, New York, among others.
The exhibition “Rhythm of Colours” runs until mid June.
The gallery, located at Praça da República 69-75, is open Tuesday to Friday, from 11am to 7pm, and Saturdays, from 10am to 2pm.
+351 289 462 320 | www.in-the-pink.com
