----21 November 2022, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE----

TAFETA at Untitled Art Miami Beach 2022

Ocean Drive, Miami Beach 

 

TAFETA will present a multimedia collection from Amber Robles-Gordon, Enam Gbewonyo and Marielle Plaisir at this year’s Untitled Art Miami Beach, during Art Basel Miami week 2022.  The three artists mixed media work in textiles, paintings and site-specific installations draw inspiration from their personal connections to the USA, United Kingdom and the Caribbean, interlinking shared musings on humanity, the body, and the impact of societal constructs on people of colour. 

With Every Fiber of My Being by Robles-Gordon is a multilayered installation partly created during the isolation of the pandemic. The works, a celebration of the artist’s commitment to working with fiber, investigate Robles- Gordon’s identity as an Afro-Latina of Puerto Rican ancestry and her nationality as a US citizen of colour. Reckoning with the condition of the United States of America and its role as a “Superpower,” the interplay between layers of text, lace and hand-sewn cell-like forms depict the complexity of the artist’s relationship with a nation state that both incites patriotic feeling, and disquiet about its deleterious past. 

Exploring the concepts of domination and supremacy, Marielle Plaisir’s Backlit works present elaborate compositions that combine imagery of lush foliage with reclaimed black-and-white vintage photography and elements of landscape paintings. In alluring and spellbinding colours, she re-contextualises various landscapes of the Caribbean islands, inspired by both her native roots and her imagined ideal of life without oppression. Collages are printed onto Duratrans paper, reworked with ink stains and other graphic elements, and placed in a light-box housing; the frames are finished with upholstered textiles, embroidered with pearls or gold thread. This reversibility allows Plaisir to show the purpose of the struggle: her work becomes a critic of the social atmosphere through the rear-view mirror of history and symbols. 

Enam Gbewonyo utilises a simple pair of tights for her reflections on empire, the marginalisation of black women and their bodies through generations. The Cyclical Vein series, initiated while the artist was on residency at Black Rock Senegal, is heavily inspired by its landscapes and the reverence afforded the Baobab tree. The work is made with recycled tights, which are hand knitted, braided, burnt through and stitched into the tree ring form, visualising the stunting of black women’s identity when framed by societal constructs that uphold the white feminine ideal. Her use of recycled tights and cotton thread hints at the real fragility of these constructed ideals, which are unraveling at the works edges. This series of works is part of the artist’s wide body of work Nude Me/ Under the Skin, an exploration the far-reaching effects of Britain’s colonial past.  

Untitled Art offers an inclusive and collaborative platform for discovering contemporary art by emerging artists and historical figures. The annual independent art fair will take place on the sands of Miami Beach during Art Basel week, and is guided by a mission to support the wider art ecosystem. This will be TAFETA’s third appearance at the fair; and in an innovative approach to showcasing at Art fairs, TAFETA’s booth will be jointly manned by collector Ayesha Selden, US-based financial services executive, real-estate investor and art collector. A passionate collector of black art, Ayesha is passionate about urban redevelopment, and uses her social media platforms to teach the importance of ownership in black and brown communities.  

Sadie Sherman, Gallery Director, says: ‘The values of the Untitled Art fair speak directly to our belief in contemporary works that push boundaries and inspire change-making thought. It’s great to bring together three women artists whose quality and intricacy of works in textiles weave together so well; having Ayesha along to support us also feels like an excellent fit, as she too shares our vision to broaden conversations around creativity and ownership. The works on display will take viewers on a journey through their expectations and perceptions, calling into question our ideas about identity and the societal fabric that binds us.

 

Press contact

sadie@tafeta.com 

+44 7498 273456

Notes to Editor

| About TAFETA Gallery | 

 

TAFETA is a gallery specialising in 20th century and Contemporary African Art. Established in 2013 and located in Bloomsbury, London, with a project space in Lagos, TAFETA remains one of the leading purveyors of some of the most important 20th century artists of African descent. Continually seeking out new talent in the contemporary space, TAFETA has also placed younger emerging artists in important private and institutional collections globally.

 

www.tafeta.com  

@art_tafeta 

 

| About The Artists | 

 

Amber Robles-Gordon 

Amber Robles-Gordon (b. 1977) is a multimedia visual artist. Her creations are visual representations of her hybridism: a fusion of her gender, ethnicity, cultural, and social experiences. Known for re-contextualising non-traditional materials, the underpinnings of her creations are imbued to reveal racial injustice and the paradoxes within the imbalance of masculine and feminine energies within our society. The artist’s practice centres on an emotional message or intention, the materials used, and the labour and time spent creating. 

Marielle Plaisir 

Marielle Plaisir (b. 1978) is a French-Caribbean multi-media artist who lives in United States. She combines paintings, drawings, installations and performances to present intense visual experiences.  Her most recent works dwell at the borderline of philosophy and sociology, history and memory to produce mnemonic devices. She incorporates what the French philosopher, Pierre Bourdieu, calls “symbolic violence,” which consists of forcing the acceptance by an entire community of any act of power as legitimate. Her work is first and foremost a research laboratory based on documentary history. While a painter first She works fluidly in many media and considers herself an activist artist. Visually, Plaisir consciously transforms any “story” that justified her narrative into a sensitive, beautiful, and ambitious work. 

Enam Gbewonyo 

Enam Gbewonyo (b. 1980)  is a London based textile and performance artist. Her practice investigates identity, womanhood, and humanity while advocating the healing benefits of craft. Her performances seek to deliver the collective consciousness to a positive place of awareness by creating live spaces of healing. Gbewonyo has exhibited with galleries and institutions such as; Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MECA (Bordeaux, France), Delphian Gallery at Saatchi Gallery, Carl Freedman Gallery, TAFETA, Bonhams, Gallery 46 Whitechapel, New Ashgate Gallery,  and Artist Project Contemporary Art Fair (Toronto, Canada). She has delivered performances for Two Temple Place, Christie’s, Henry Moore Institute in collaboration with the International Curator’s Forum (ICF), at the 58th edition of Venice Biennale’s opening week, for Black Shade Projects as part of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Marrakech 2020 public programme and most recently a livestream performance activating Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s exhibition, Fly in League with the Night for Tate Britain. Gbewonyo is also a curator and the Black British Female Artist (BBFA) Collective founder - a platform that supports emerging black women artists’ careers and advocates inclusivity.

VIP Preview 28 November

29 November - 3 December | Booth C23

Ocean Drive

Miami Beach

https://untitledartfairs.com

Image: Amber Robles-Gordon, With Every Fiber of My Being: Superpower State - Superpower Abilities, 2023