Championed Artist
Onabulé works across a wide range of media drawing on her rich Greek, English and Nigerian heritage to present us with a diverse awareness that spans history and the present whilst also looking to the future.
She expertly voyages through landscape, exploring our relationship to the natural world and our current ecological predicament. The work portrays places and people who seem untouched, almost otherworldly, harmonious and at one with the landscape they inhabit. Onabulé draws on the depiction of people from ancient cultures, seeing humans and souls as more symbolic rather than individualistic. She expands on the idea of the everyman, of universal, collective experience across large oil paintings, works on card and monotypes on paper. Onabulé's mark marking is intuitive, depicting figures in landscapes standing, or lying, in verdant forests and scorched plains amid fronds of foliage and long shadows. There are mountains and rivers, skies and wildfires. They are romantic and dangerous, mysterious yet familiar.
Her works straddles longing and irony, exploring how we have lost our way with regards to our relationship to the natural world and asking questions about how we might find our way back.
Send me more information on Kemi Onabulé
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The Lunatics
KEMI ONABULÉ 11 February - 3 March 2023Read more -
And this skin of mine, to live again a second time
2 - 23 June 2022Guts Gallery is pleased to present a new group exhibition in late Spring 2022, the first group show in our new permanent HQ in London. ‘And this skin of mine,...Read more -
REALITY CHECK
23 September - 3 October 2021Opening: Thur 23 Sept 6-9pm Exhibition Location: Anderson Contemporary, Carpenter’s Wharf Studios, 4b Roach Road, London E3 2PA Via Monier Road Footbridge Regular Opening Hours: Wed - Sun 11-6pm Guts...Read more -
A NEW ART WORLD
A NEW ART WORLD IS POSSIBLE. 22 - 29 July 2021Private View: Thursday 22 July 6-9pm Opening Hours: Tues - Sun 11am - 6pm Location: 147 Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16 0NY No RSVP's required BUY THE MANIFESTO PRINT...Read more
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Kemi Obabulé - The Lunatics - ArtReview Page Spread
ArtReview, 15 Feb 2023 -
The Lunatics – We interview Kemi Onabulé on her show, the moon & the saga of humankind
Lee Taylor, Flux Magazine, 11 Feb 2023 -
FAD Magazine feature Guts latest exhibition REALITY CHECK
Mark Westall , FAD Magazine , 23 Sep 2021 -
DAZED features latest Guts exhibition, REALITY CHECK
Emily Dinsdale, DAZED, 21 Sep 2021 -
Top Ten Shows from the UK and Ireland
Mimi Chu, Frieze, 12 Feb 2021 -
ON VIEW BY FLASH ART: “It’s 2020 For F*ck Sake” Guts Gallery and Soft Punk / London
Flash Art , 11 Dec 2020 -
IT’S 2020 FOR F*CK SAKE
ART PLUGGED, ART PLUGGED, 30 Sep 2020
Born 1995 in London. Lives and Works in London.
Education
2016 BA (Hons), Fine Art: Painting, Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK
Solo Exhibitions
2023 The Lunatics, Guts Gallery, London, UK
2022 Arcadia, Sim Smith, London, UK
2020 Arrival on the Beach, Guts Gallery, London, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022
Shrubs, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Matches Struck Unexpectedly In The Dark, One Room Gallery, London, UK
2021
Saw It Hang Down There, Bode Projects, Berlin, Germany
Reality Check, Guts Gallery/Anderson Contemporary, London, UK
Into The Light of The Present Day, Oliver Projects, London, UK
Underpinned by Movements of Freighters, The Florence Trust, London, UK
Cluster-Phobia, Newington Green Meeting House, London, UK
Get A Load of This, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London, UK
For The Many Not The Few, Guts Gallery, London, UK
2020
Untitled (But Loved), Bosse & Baum, London, UK
In Response, The Viewing Room, London, UK
2019
They Catch Feelings, I Catch Bodies, Sim Smith, London, UK
2016
Wimbledon College of Art BA Degree Show, London, UK
2015
The Contemporary Portrait, Thompson's Gallery, London, UK
Awards
2021
Jackson's Painting Prize, Shortlisted
2017
Hix Award, Shortlisted
Ingram Young Artist Prize, Shortlisted
2016
Clyde & Co Art Awards, Shortlisted