‘Season of Migration’ @ Grove Collective
Grove Collective’s current group show Season of Migration features the work of artists Christian Camacho, Francisca Sosa López, and Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, and aims to explore the state of the relationship between old world centres and their globalised, postcolonial counterparts. In a world that has been entirely redefined in recent memory, how have these relationships been recast along cultural, economic, and social lines in the new world order? Derived from the title of the classic 1966 postcolonial novel Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration draws into dialogue the work of three artists whose careers have brought them to occupy the amorphous, often fluid middle-ground between centre and periphery.
Chirstian Camacho, works in Mexico but was educated in London, Sosa Lopez is Venezuelan but was educated and is now working in London, and Tapiwa Nyaude is Zimbabwean but has exhibited extensively throughout America and Europe. Coming from these varied contexts, Season of Migration interrogates each artist’s products of living - both intellectually and literally – between traditional and emergent centres in today’s art world. Yet, Season of Migration rejects, and resists, the typical assertion of flows of culture and influence from centres to peripheries, by way of postcolonial paradigms, and rejects flows from peripheries to centres by way of colonial appropriation. Alternatively, this exhibition proposes a necessary reformulation of binary concepts of power and influence, rendering claims to legitimate “centres” obsolete.
Installation view. Source: Grove Collective.
Francisca Sosa Lopez’s work is informed by her country, Venezuela, and the various on-going crises there, particularly migration. Reflecting on these issues, Lopez’s paintings are based on her personal feelings and emotions, disappointment and affections to her country. Since 1999, under the presidencies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, millions of Venezuelans have emigrated from their native country due to the Bolivarian Revolution. This revolution, initially led by Chavez, has led to social decline following his death in 2013, with the political and economical situation rapidly deteriorating as a result. However, through her work, Lopez seeks to showcase what her native country means to her: its vibrancy, culture, colour, music and abundant nature. The works selected for Season of Migration feature scenes of nature abstracted into kaleidoscopes of colour, executed in luscious, thick brushstrokes. Frequently layering materials allows Lopez to use materiality as another form of expression.
Installation view with work by Francisca Sosa Lopez on show. From left to right: Sol Terraqueo and Al Arbol Debemos Solicito Amor (2021). Source: Grove Collective.
Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, similarly paints in response to the issues in his own surrounding environment, much like Lopez. Nyaude simultaneously puts himself in conversation with broad ideas about art and the history of painting, drawing influence from Basquiat to Bacon. Oscillating between figuration, abstraction and hallucination, Nyaude draws inspiration from the restless energy of his hometown.
Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Faith in Humanity Part 2, 2021, oil on canvas. Source: Grove Collective.
Defying characterisation, the figures populating Nyaude’s works are fantastical and vibrant. Nyaude paints curious and strange amalgams of creatures in an act of freeing himself, not only from the bounds of his upbringing, but also from the limitations of the human form.
Installation view. From left to right: Christian Camacho, Spent Planets and Stars are Carried to the River, 2021; Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Faith in Humanity Part 3, 2021. Source: Grove Collective.
Alongside the colourful, highly expressive work of both Nyaude and Lopez hang the most discreet, intricate works of Christian Camacho. Executed in a technique that seems to be related to pointillism, Camacho’s brush strokes are short and staccato, the resulting works resembling mosaics.
Christian Camacho, There Were: On The Grass, A Mule, Near the Mule, A Man, in the Man, A Corpse, 2021, oil on canvas. Source: Grove Collective.
For Grove Collective, and the art world at large, this exhibition signals a timely and important turn towards a more global outlook. Season of Migration focuses not on how each artist shares in, repurposes or ignores, the norms of Western art, but rather how they are impacted by a range of influences, that might take from, share in or entirely disregard Western imperatives. Expanding our outlooks beyond that which is familiar, the viewer is encouraged to engage in a process of re-education and re-evaluation through engaging with these works.
Season of Migration was on view until October 30th 2021, but can be viewed via Grove Collective’s website.
Olivia Wilson
Reviews Editor, MADE IN BED