Karo Akpokiere
Growing up in Lagos has shaped Akpokiere’s visual identity, making him sensitive to form, composition, colour, and the visual culture shaping cities.
Karo Akpokiere’s bold works combine traditional and digital drawing techniques to tell stories informed by his acute perception of social, personal, and political realities in the cities he inhabits. Akpokiere’s work which is often characterised by a close combination of text and image harnesses the power of ‘play’ to create expansive fictional and non-fictional narratives. His work has been hugely influenced by his multicultural upbringing in Lagos in the 1980s: patterns and fabrics, comic books, graphic design, cartoons, and music from Nigeria and abroad.
Akpokiere creates work across disciplines, inspired by the words and images which surround us.
Whilst at art school, Akpokiere’s parents gifted him the book 100% Cotton: T-Shirt Graphics. This was the font of inspiration that Akpokiere needed to understand that his work at the blurred border between fine art and graphic design was valid, fluid, and innate. For example, his work Nigerian Mystic Visa Temple is a contemporary tapestry, part of the project Lagos Drawings. It plays on themes of graphic design and advertising running through Lagos and offers a satirical take on migration to the global north set amid a backdrop of religious and commercial fervour. His works Always and never and Hopes and dreams refer to hierarchical lines of value in the art world and affirmations in times of uncertainty respectively. Akpokiere’s work is undoubtedly influenced by his understanding of African modernism, which in his words is about embracing the past and the present, the local and the foreign. He views his work as an exercise in progress, one that is always changing as new interests and attitudes are formed.
Text by Constance Chester and Karo Akpokiere
Portraits by Dagmara Wojtanowicz
The mix of t-shirt graphics, sneakers, advertising, streetwear, comic books, etc available locally and from different parts of the world gave me a feeling for form, composition, colour and made me sensitive to how messages and stories of any kind can be shared in ways that are accessible.
Biography Karo Akpokiere
born 1981 in Lagos, Nigeria
Education
2017-2020
MFA Graphic Art/ Typography/ Photography, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg, Germany
2008-2009
Creative Enterprise: Core Programme, Lagos Business School, Lagos, Nigeria
2003-2006
HND Graphic Design, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria
2000-2001
OND General Arts, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria
Exhibitions (selection)
2022
17th International Triennale of Tapestry, Central Museum of Textiles, Łódź, Poland
Lost Drawings, MMCA (National Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art) Residency, Changdong, Seoul, South Korea (SOLO)
2021
The World is White No Longer: Views of a Decentered World, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair, Kent State University Museum, Ohio, USA
2019
IV Biennal of Montevideo, Uruguay
Political Affairs - Language is not innocent, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany
2018
África Revisitada, Zipper Galeria, Sao Paulo, Brasil
Flow of Forms/Forms of Flow: Design history between Africa and Europe, MARKK Museum, Hamburg, Germany
2017
Studio K, Griffelkunst Kunstraum Seilerstraße, Hamburg, Germany (SOLO)
Southern Panoramas, 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paulo, Brasil
EX-Africa, CCBB, Belo Horizonte, Brasil
2016
Dear Europa, Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Representing the City, International Comic-Salon, Erlangen, Germany (SOLO)
2015
All of the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Prizes/Residencies/Scholarships
2022
Nomination for the Paula Modersohn - Becker Kunstpreis, Worpswede, Germany
2021
Lichtwark-Förderpreis, City of Hamburg, Germany
2018
Artist Fellowship, MMCA (National Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art), Seoul, South Korea
Resident artist, Artica Svalbard, Longyearbyen, invited by the Queen Sonja Print Award
2017
Resident artist, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2016
Nomination for the Queen Sonja Print Award, Oslo, Norway
Resident artist, Konstepidemin, Gothenburg, Sweden, funded by IASPIS (The Swedish Arts and Grants Committee)
Works by Karo Akpokiere
Angel of Light
2018 / Archival fine art print on paper / 73 x 54 cm / 28.7 x 21.3 in (framed) / €1,050
Lost Drawing Game Machine
2020 / Ink on paper / 30.7 x 22 cm / 12.1 x 8.7 in (framed) / €1,150
Powerlines need Blue Skies
2015 / Archival fine art print on paper / 52 x 38 cm / 20.5 x 15.0 in (framed) / €650
Traffic and Time
2015 / Archival fine art print on paper / 43 x 30.7 cm / 16.9 x 12.1 in (framed) / €650
Illustrated letter N
2011 / Archival fine art print on paper / 44 x 31.7 cm / 17.3 x 12.5 in (framed) / €650
Illustrated letter I
2011 / Archival fine art print on paper / 44 x 31.7 cm / 17.3 x 12.5 in (framed) / €650
Lagos Faux Sticker Collage
2020 / Archival fine art print on paper / 30.7 x 43 cm / 12.1 x 16.9 in (framed) / €650
Always and Never
2017 / Archival fine art print on paper / 30.7 x 43 cm / 12.1 x 16.9 in (framed) / €650
A Chair for all Seasons
2015 / Archival fine art print on paper / 43 x 30.7 cm / 16.9 x 12.1 in (framed) / €650
Hopes and Dreams
2020 / Archival fine art print on paper / 86.1 x 61.4 cm / 33.9 x 24.2 in (framed) / €950
Love Note to Difference
2018 / Archival fine art print on paper / 85.1 x 60.4 cm / 33.5 x 23.8 in (framed) / €950
The New Imperialist
2020 / Digital print on photo paper / 60.4 x 85.1 cm / 23.8 x 33.5 in (framed) / €250
The New Imperialist
2020 / Digital print on photo paper. / 60.4 x 85.1 cm / 23.8 x 33.5 in (framed) / €250
The Grid
2022 / Ink on paper / 72 x 52 cm / 28.3 x 20.5 in (framed) / €1,650
Lockdown
2022 / Ink on paper / 72 x 52 cm / 28.3 x 20.5 in (framed) / €1,650
Nigerian Mystic Visa Temple
2022 / Jacquard woven Tapestry / 260 x 169 cm / 102.4 x 66.5 in / €9,000
High Life Generator Orchestra
2022 / Jacquard woven Tapestry / 260 x 169 cm / 102.4 x 66.5 in / €9,000