Sadikou Oukpedjo - New Now London Thursday, April 28, 2022 | Phillips
  • 'Mysterious half-man, half-animal beings appear on the canvas in surreal, seemingly mythological scenes […] Through visually raw and dynamic imagery, the Ivory Coast-based artist explores existence following the belief that man was first created as a hybrid being.'
    —Millie Walton, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

    In 1998, Sadikou Oukpedjo joined Paul Ahyi’s studio where he worked on wood carving and assembly. In addition to woodworking, he started painting and diversifying his experiments: cement paper, pastel highlight, chalk, colours, canvases. In 2013, after a stay in Bamako, he moved to Abidjan where he devoted himself entirely to painting. Upon returning from Dak’Art in 2014, he began a series of drawings on newsprint that consist of characters that are all at once human and animal which were first presented at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London in 2014.

     

    In 2015, Oukpedjo’s work was exhibited for the first time in Lagos, in the exhibition Platform, presented by Art Twenty-One (ART 21) and he participated in a Fondation Blachère art residency program in La Somone, Senegal. In 2016, the artist presented his first solo exhibition Anima, at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury  in Abidjan. His work was also shown at the Fringe of the 12th Dakar Biennale in the exhibition Une collection particulière. As well as undertaking a residency at La Vallée in Brussels, Sadikou also participated in the Africa First residency in Israel in 2018, which culminated in an exhibition at the African Studies Gallery in April 2018.

     

    Recalling the hybrid creatures of Greek mythology, Oukpedjo’s figures are ‘simultaneously strange and familiar’, as Millie Walton of Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery has described: ‘Beyond spiritual and cultural narratives, Oukpedjo’s hybrid beings encompass the struggles and mutations that lead to the formation of a national and personal identity. […] The artist’s attempt to create a new mythology, which promotes unity and integrity rather than continual conflict.’i

     

    i Millie Walton, quoted in Sadikou Oukepdjo, Artist’s Statement, Africa First Collection, online.

    • Provenance

      Africa First Artist Residency, Tel Aviv
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Tel Aviv, African Studies Gallery, Palimpsest, July - October 2018

PROPERTY SOLD TO BENEFIT THE AFRICA FIRST ACQUISITIONS FUND AND RESIDENCY PROGRAM

40

Untitled

signed and dated 'SADIKOU/18' on the reverse
oil stick and acrylic on canvas
134.8 x 125 cm (53 1/8 x 49 1/4 in.)
Executed in 2018.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£4,000 - 6,000 

Sold for £20,160

Contact Specialist

Charlotte Gibbs
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now
+44 20 7901 7993
CGibbs@phillips.com

New Now

London Auction 28 April 2022