Featuring gallery artists alongside new names, the inaugural Ed Cross Summer Show aims to highlight emerging talent by placing it in conversation with established practices in a supportive environment.
Summer Show // 1 features 12 works by seven artists working across the mediums of painting, photography and sculpture: Ermias Ekube, Pabi Daniel, Leah Gordon, Mario Macilau, Abe Odedina, Sola Olulode and Eric Pina.
Director Ed Cross says: “I am so excited to be launching what I hope will be the first of many Ed Cross Summer Shows – proudly eclectic but united in focus on the heart and soul of the matters that face us all in this surreal era that we find ourselves in.”
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ermias Ekube (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) studied at the Addis Ababa School of Fine arts and Design, graduating in 1990. He lives and works in Kalmar, Sweden. Merging figurative and conceptual strands, Ekube’s work draws on thoughts and memories to imbue stories with meaning via simple objects, signs and gestures. Selected solo exhibitions include The process of changing a meaning that matters or not, Oskarshamn Kulturhuset, 2019; Do Lives Matter?, Malhuset, Oslo, Norway, 2016-17; Glimpse of Time, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2015; between Times, Västervik, Sweden, 2015; Porträtt Från Min Kappsäck, Västervik, Sweden, 2014 and Breath of consciousness, Nairobi, Alliance Francaise, 2013. Group exhibition highlights include African Artists for Development, Vienna, 2017; Far & Near, Pontasieve and Bergamo, Italy, 2012, and Engraving from Eritrea, Paris and Milan, 2004.
Pabi Daniel (b. 1999, Accra, Ghana) is a painter fascinated by painting itself. Applying pigment in sculptural layers as well as smooth washes, Daniel's practice prompts its viewer to consider paint’s sociological aspects as well as its material reality: who have painters been, in canonical – Western – art history? Who have been their muses, and how might those categories be troubled by a painter beyond those confines? Following a successful presentation with Parisian gallery Anne de Villepoix, Daniel will present new work in his first solo exhibition in the UK with Ed Cross in October 2022.
Leah Gordon (b. 1959, Ellesmere Port, UK) is an artist, curator, and writer. Her work explores the intervolved and intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts and the creation of the British working-class. In the 1980s, she wrote lyrics, sang, and played for a feminist folk punk band. Gordon’s film and photographic work has been exhibited internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Dak’art Biennale; the National Portrait Gallery, UK, and the Norton Museum of Art, Florida. In 2022 she exhibits and curates at documenta fifteen, Kassel, MOCA North Miami and the Power Plant Gallery, Duke University, NC, USA.
Mário Macilau (b.1984, Mozambique) lives and works in Maputo, Mozambique. A multi-disciplinary artist best known for his photography, Macilau specialises in long-term projects and series that address the complex realities of human labour and environmental conditions. Macilau started his journey as a photographer in 2003 from the streets of Maputo, becoming professional when he traded his mother's cell phone for his first camera in 2007. Recent exhibition highlights include ArPA Sao Paolo, 2022; Songs of the Present, Musée de la Photographie de Saint Louis, Senegal, 2018; Afrique Capitales, La Villette, Paris, 2017, and at the Pavilion of the Holy See, 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. Macilau has been shortlisted for the 2019 Mast Award and the was a finalist of the Unicef Photo of the Year in 2009, the Greenpeace Photo Award 2016, and is in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Centre.
Abe Odedina (b.1960, Ibadan, Nigeria) lives and works between London and Brazil. Before starting to paint on a trip to Brazil in 2007, Odedina had a successful career as an architect. Together with The Underground Museum, Los Angeles, Odedina was awarded the 2017 Ellsworth Kelly Award from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, New York. Solo exhibitions include Cutting Edge, Ed Cross, London, 2021; Birds of Paradise, Copeland Gallery, London, 2019; True Love, The Department Store, London, 2018; Eye to Eye, Copeland Gallery, London, 2016; Hi-Life, Brixton East, 2014, and Under the Influence, The Lookout, Aldeburgh, 2013. Selected group exhibitions include In the Beginning, Ed Cross (online), 2021; Stop, Listen! CFHILL (online), 2021; Diaspora, New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, 2019; Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, London, 2019; Talisman in the Age of Difference, Stephen Friedman Gallery, 2018; Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, 2017, and BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2013. Odedina’s work is in a number of major international collections including The British Government Art Collection, the Serge Tiroche Collection and the collection of Jorge Pérez. In 2017, Odedina was commissioned by director Danny Boyle and the South African charity Dramatic Need to create a new body of work for the digital set of The Children’s Monologues, at Carnegie in New York City.
Sola Olulode (b. 1996, London) is a British Nigerian artist living and working in London. Presenting nuanced and tender visions of intimacy and community, Olulode’s wistful images are celebrations of Black identity, womanhood and non-binary people. Distinguished by their use of gestural brushwork, indigo dye, wax, oil bar, impasto and monochromatic schemes (typically in blue, green or yellow) the artist’s compositions speak strongly of her Nigerian heritage while centring the representation and visibility of Black Queer lived experiences. Recent exhibitions include Bold Black British, Christie's, London, 2021; Stäying Alive, Berntson Bhattacharjee, Sweden, 2021; An Infinity of Traces, Lisson Gallery, London, 2021; Fight or Flight, Roman Road, London, 2020, and Blacklisted: An Indefinite Revolution, Alice Black, London, 2020.
Eric Pina (b. 1972 Thies, Senegal) studied at l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Dakar before completing his training in Europe where he received a degree from l‘Ecole Supérieure d’Art de Mulhouse et de Haute-Alsace in Mulhouse, France. Focusing on human body language and the micro interactions between people and cultural backgrounds, Pina’s practice comprises painting and drawing as well as printmaking and sculpture. Imagining intimate, parallel universes that opportune a multitude of scenarios and ‘small’ moments, a Pina composition amasses an unlikely group of citizens in what appears to be an ambiguous waiting game; despite their diverse material incarnations, his figures maintain an emblematic presence even when removed from their context or isolated from a given journey or task. Pina was selected for exhibition at Dak’Art Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, Senegal, in 2014, and has had solo presentations in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and France.
