Mariane Ibrahim Gallery

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce the inaugural solo exhibition with Carmen Neely entitled, Sometimes a painting is a prayer. On view from May 26 through July 8, the show is shaped through interwoven dimensions of intimacy, generosity, and risk, with Neely presenting her largest scale painting to date in conversation with lithographic prints of her personal journal pages and several works on paper. A sharp line in dark plum traverses from the edge of the canvas and cuts through a melding of glazing brushstrokes. The emotional release of catharsis is often accompanied by an acute self-awareness, in its wake the hope of relief. Amidst this intense expulsion of feelings is a longing to regain some semblance of control. It is a part of healing. It is a part of living in a world that demands productivity while too often overlooking holistic wellbeing. It is soul work and as Bambara’s quote advises, it is difficult to hold. Carmen Neely’s paintings grapple with these interior landscapes, generating visual languages of sensuous gestures and decisive lines, while integrating asemic writing with legible text.

50 LBS marks Patrick Eugène’s inaugural solo exhibition in Chicago, and in celebration of his new artist representation by the gallery. With just fifty pounds of luggage, one is meant to journey with the entirety of their life. What about those migrating in hopes for a better future? The exhibition will explore how Haitian families, escaping the oppressive conditions during the dictatorships of François "Papa Doc" and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc", navigated this difficult passage as they attempted to improve their circumstances during NYC's immigration boom in the 1960s-70s.

“Black experience in any modern city or town in the Americas is a haunting. One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes.” - DIONNE BRAND, A Map to the Door of No Return Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce Hauntology: Ghostly Matters, a group exhibition curated by Nigerian-British curator, Aindrea Emelife. The show is on view in Chicago from January 27 - April 1, 2023, featuring work by Okikioluwa Akinfe, ruby onyinyechi amanze, M. Florine Démosthène, Miranda Forrester, Taiye Idahor, Shannon T. Lewis, Olukemi Lijadu and Temitayo Ogunbiyi. Coined by Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Specters of Marx, Hauntology is used to describe a sense in which contemporary culture is quite literally haunted by the “lost futures” of modernity. Emelife positions this perspective alongside the African concept of Ubuntu, in which our sense of self is shaped by our relationships with others, creating a way of living that begins with the translation and resulting premise, “I am” only because “we are." With this, the exhibition explores the ideas of Black womanhood - the soul, the body, the mind - and seeks to find healing and restoration, promoting oneness rather than fragmentation by uniting the many perspectives of female artists from Africa and the diaspora. The work of Olukemi Lijadu emphasizes the concept of African anthropology and how that relates to personhood and the body in a holistic sense. One of the crossover themes explores how Black womanhood is also embedded in an intricate network of relationships with family (living and dead), the community, God and nature. This view is the antithesis of Greek and the later Cartesian view with its dualistic split between body and soul. The film explores the artist’s relationship with religion, informed by her grandmother, a study of African philosophy, and her Catholic upbringing which come together to represent the fragments of her identity. Avery F. Gordon’s book Ghostly Matters talks about the haunting of history peeking through, in which she writes, “haunting is not the same as being exploited, traumatized, or oppressed, although it usually involves these experiences or is produced by them.” Instead, Gordon argues, haunting is a kind of “animated state in which a repressed or unresolved social violence is making itself known.” The past and the present are not discrete categories, like dead and alive, planes on top of planes. Collage speaks to this construction, as embodied by Shannon T. Lewis whose assemblage painting style fragments the form to whimsical effect, but it is in the pursuit of freedom; freedom from stereotype, archetype and marginalization. They are free in their multiplicity, as are Okikioluwa Akinfe’s bodies, which retreat and confront from within blurred lines between figuration and abstraction. With lyrical fluidity, Akinfe interrogates social body language and how race and cultural upbringing enhances or weakens archetypes applied to Black women. Temitayo Ogunbiyi envisions how parts of the body, her own and other bodies of color, can come together to create new compositions that consider community, environment, interdependence, and spirituality. Looking principally to forms found in nature, and how they can be emulated by human gestures such as hairstyling, the work brings together tradition and nature. Inspired by Yoruba adages, the work imbues the idea that every living being has a spirit. Similarly, Taiye Idahor’s focus on hair as a motif symbolizes ancestral connections, family, lineage and history. Unraveling the complexities of identity, her work employs a surrealistic style embedded with symbols that reflect tradition and memory. M. Florine Démosthène exists between dream and nightmare, possibility and actually, as she explores the Black female body as a myriad of collective experiences beyond immediate interpretations based on sensuality. Whereas Miranda Forrester’s exploration of the queer Black female gaze also serves to address the invisibility of women of color in art history. The show also nods to Toni Morrison’s Sula, which imagines Black women dreaming as one, imagining possible and impossible futures. ruby onyinyechi amanze forms a world that imagines boundless futures for Black women. Celebrating the oneness of ubuntu, the weightlessness of the work negotiates away from the heaviness of linear time, understanding the contemporary mythologies and the futuristic feeling of now. “Positioned squarely in a fixed liminality, the show explores spaces of hybridity that Black women exist in. As Black women, we are haunted by expectations, historical and cultural stereotypes, that are fixed principally on our bodies and how they exist and have existed in the world. These artists create as protection, to explore and create the possibilities of the future and new memories of the past. It is survival. Haunting is not negative, it is a profound invention.” - Aindrea Emelife

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Italian-Senegalese artist Maïmouna Guerresi, entitled The Fall: Awa and Adama. The exhibition will be on view in Chicago from November 5 – December 23, 2022. In Maïmouna Guerresi's works the viewer is nudged toward a metaphysical realm; A suspended reality, balanced between the breath of the human and the divine, where time has yet to originate. In this atemporal place light is extinguished with the fall of the human, setting the stage for the primigenial subjects Guerresi exquisitely portrays. The characters are sculptural figures, literally and figuratively, that recount the original myth, shared by the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, through their poses and gestures.

Mwesiga’s works are abjectly peaceful scenes that appear simple in their composition but upon close observation subtly suggest questions whose responses only engender more questions. His subjects are always either dressed in blue or positioned against a blue background. Where a piano is included, the subject is either standing on it, leaning over it, or looking past it. The piano becomes a kind of anchor, it keeps time, it props up its subjects, but also allows them to experience rest. It is an instrument that provides multiple experiences none of which are about its primary use — music making. In color psychology, blue is understood as a calming color that brings peace and serenity. It is also a color, particularly in its association with water that hides the depths beneath. When associated with ice or the sky it can give rise to feelings of distance. Mwesiga’s blues imply and depict action. They are reflective of a young man’s dreams of playing basketball and the distinctive movements of his body while playing. Image Caption: Ian Mwesiga, Basketball Player IV, 2022. Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim

The Myths of Eternal Life is Zohra Opoku’s latest body of work—an art practice that sought to be both healing and transformative. I Have Arisen will unveil Part One of this series, the second to debut in her first solo exhibition in Paris. Across Zohra Opoku’s practice, one might consider an underlying question: How do we hold it all together when things are fragmented or have fallen to pieces? Opoku answers this by making evident her sutures. Her new series continues to ponder this inquiry, as she brings together two years of works that she created in the wake of her cancer diagnosis to stitch together a story of devastation and rejuvenation.

In using flowers as a subject, the artists present each bespoke work as a congratulatory gesture while exploring historical meanings and personal relevance of the efflorescence. Of the many artistic, historical, and emotional meanings and symbols of flowers, La Vie en Rose contemplates the beauty of and the idea of coming back to life. “In our 10th year, I envisioned flowers to present a resistance and a reclamation of beauty and joy in this new departure. They symbolize the purity and passion, the flowers from the artists are an offering, an antidote, a hopeful reminder of the fragility of life. The result is breathtaking, a collection of flower arrangements reflecting the artist own signature,” states Mariane Ibrahim.

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce Longing, the gallery's inaugural exhibition with Peter Uka. On view in Chicago from November 13 – December 18, 2021, the show marks the artist's first show with the gallery and in the United States. Novelist Zadie Smith commented that “historical nostalgia” was a sentiment not “available” to black people: “I can’t go back to the fifties because life in the fifties for me is not pretty, nor is it pretty in 1320 or 1460 or 1580 or 1820 or even 1960 in this country, very frankly.” The large-scale oil paintings exude notions of nostalgia, a gaze on spaces long forgotten. The works timeless ability arise from a query, how do we document a history that was unwritten, and only told orally? Of historical memories recounted and not crystallized. Moments in time are captured, each representing a chamber of reflection, all solely painted from memory. Uka finds strength in referencing familiar scenes and moments in Nigeria, through an era specific and recognizable collective memory. These instants were engraved in his early recollections – poses of brothers arm in arm, the bright, surrounding colors and patterns – presenting his personal link to his life left behind when moving to Germany. His works form a tangible way to display mutuality in the experience worldwide, an affirmation of presence. Throughout the 20th century, African Americans conceived various radical political paradigms to redefine their social positions and assert their humanity. Uka references these theories to show their commonplace, but also heightens relevant stylistic patterns and color to outline the beauty in their wistfulness. Uka moves beyond portraiture and examines fleeting gestures, where multiple figures appear in public spaces, away from their individualized interior environments. The patterns and backgrounds inspired by 70s wallpapers embellish the new settings, a nod to his previous works which similarly draw upon elements of clothing, dance and posture. The 70’s, although still alive in the memory of many, may be too far gone to have any relevance on the outlook and identities of people today, however they function to deviate from the conversation surrounding art and history which remain largely centered on authenticity, oppression, and pain. The stimulus of Uka’s practice comes from what he deems "the quantum leap", his necessary footstep into the unknown. These moments of nostalgia facilitate the continuity of identity, further persisting in his future work. The paintings showcase a nostalgia for life that is colorful and full of bliss. There continues to be space and yearning for joy, reflection, and redefinition.

Gibbs avails the new body of work as a point of departure to explore musicality in his compositions. As harmony is the basis of color theory and melody emulate the unity of color, the dynamic and symphony are defined through Gibb’s pictorial touch. Paying homage to the Impressionists, the paintings are vivid in pointillism, the oscillating contours of his paintings meld the skin tone and monochrome backgrounds into a modern sfumato.  The boy in all of the works represents a multitude of voices, ideas and ways of living. For the artist, the color, the ‘people of color’ portray the multiple and myriad of experiences and ideas that should be painted about, explored and shown. There is a continuation of gesture which acts as a thread between each work. Repetition is a constant throughout the paintings, resemblances are disposed in order to discover particularities of a memory. The recurrence of stroke join the colors with the repeated figure, as the artist uses repetition as a form of distinction. Visual and palette rhythms, cannot be replaced, echoing a secret vibration which animates profoundness. The fictional portraits mark a shift from his interest in acquainting the past, and instead reflect a pursuit of redefining representations. Figurative compositions explore contemporary identity to “change the narrative rather than repeat the renegade.” Gibbs attention lies in manifesting a youthful and revitalized future defined by schisms of contemporary Black solace.  Although no musical collaboration will accompany the paintings, Gibbs challenges himself to communicate the rhythmic energy present in his subjects and their environment. By implementing concepts of synesthesia, playing with textures and utilizing a bright selection of color, the vibrancy of the image protrudes from the canvas, awakening the gallery into a space of spontaneous leisure. Sounds of Color: Recorded Memories is his repartee, from exploring the legacies inherited through his family for generations, to how he attempts to define his own legacy and his own genre in art history.

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yukimasa Ida, entitled “Here and Now” on view, in Chicago, from June 26 – August 14, 2021. The show marks the artists debut in the United States. In the new body of work for “Here and Now”, Ida is focused on life and death as an eternal cycle and includes distorted portraits and bronze sculptures of human heads. Ida continues to experiment with spontaneous as well as intentional patterns. Each of his works merge various intensities of stroke, communicating specific ranges of emotion. Every piece embodies a snapshot of a memory, reflecting the way the human mind processes a fleeting moment…construed and inconsistent.

The show will be on view from May 7 – June 5, 2021 and will present seven new drawings. To make these works, over twenty-five different drawings were created, then cut and systematically reassembled into their finished form. amanze is currently working with a newly reduced capsule of seven recurring elements that include: swimming pools, ada and audre - who masquerade as swimmers/divers, dancers and pseudo lovers - windows and other architectural references, okada [motorcycle taxis], pigeons in flight and the paper itself. amanze speaks lovingly of each of the elements as individual forms. Now having isolated them from their former cohort, they take on new meaning as the ones that stayed. Human-like beings and inanimate objects ultimately share the same function; flat forms that interact and move [play] in endless configurations to create a multi-dimensional and therefore, illogical space. amanze’s drawings are an illusion; a suggestion of an expansive unnamed world situated between nowhere and everywhere. Primarily using graphite, fluorescent inks and photo transfers, each layer of space within the drawing has, with calculation and spontaneity, been negotiated, constructed and ultimately invented. To build upon the layering of space within the drawing, amanze has begun to explore a process of creating a final work that consists of overlapping multiple sheets of paper. Taking this one step further and embracing the puzzle-like element of parts within a whole, the drawings In Thinghood come together towards the end of the process. amanze removed any semblance of knowing in advance what the works would be and opened an organic dialogue with the drawings about what they could become. With almost thirty separate units to compose with, there are virtually infinite possibilities to bend planes and disrupt logic.

The Blue that embraces me...highlights the silent essence that illuminates the memory of such things that, individually and intimately, bring us back to ourselves. These seminal landscapes seek to identify the contours of life, presenting a kind of tracing of the soul as the artist views his work as a spiritual language, a way to see life as a sacred experience of interrelations. The show marks a defining moment in the artists career as Lucena’s artistic production is moving toward a wider understanding of “limit” as a concept. The limit being both the environs that define a space and those naturally perceived. As a painter, Lucena felt the need to run against the limits of language. The duplicity of these slivers of light is the boundary that invites us to extend beyond the previously established liminal environments and spatial interstices to expand our point of view and create a new and unanticipated permeance.

The Night of the Purple Moon, marks the gallery’s inaugural presentation with the artist and his first solo gallery show in the United States. The gallery will be transformed into a Galerie des Illustres, an otherworldly environment with large scale portraits on canvas, cloaks, chaps and flags. Fictional heroes and historical reinterpretations embellish subjects from classical and canonical histories: from the Caribbean, Voodoo and magical deities, to function as a way for formerly enslaved humans to hold on to their African identity, despite the violence of Western colonialism. Barontini illuminates disparities in the visual and cultural history of the French Caribbean, which is rooted in African ancestry, yet virtually saturated with culture of an insular Caribbean.