Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye
ART DECO ZEBRA CROSSING
14–31 October 2021 Open Thursday–Sunday 12–6pm
Flat Time House presents Art Deco Zebra Crossing, a new performative exhibition by Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye in collaboration with Intoart.
Amooquaye’s practice integrates the visual, written and spoken word through print, text, image and live performance. For this project, after two years in discussion with John Latham’s poetry, writing, and the domestic space of FTHo she has brought these elements together for a new performance piece alongside a series of new paintings.
Central to the presentation is a stage set comprised of a velvet dressing screen and silk wall hangings that act as a backdrop for the performance of a poem written and performed by Amooquaye and presented here as a short film. The works are made with the domestic scale of Flat Time House in mind. To perform the poem, she has designed a bespoke printed silk dress featuring hand drawn motifs that reference recurring themes in the text. Completed in 2021, the performance builds on previous performances 'The Vocal Project' at Peer, London (2018), and ‘Dress Poems’ at Museum Texture Kortrijk, Belgium (2017) exploring the intersections of writing, scenography and performance.
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye, Microphone and Stand, 2018, Ink on paper
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye Art Deco Zebra Crossing, 2021, Dressing Screen
Amooquaye’s series of six new paintings on paper, completed in the summer of 2021, incorporate bold images and handwritten text. This work combines textual and visual research developed in the artists’ home during lockdown in 2020. The paintings reference the Suffragettes and the Black Lives Matter movement. Titles include: ‘Africa The New Work of Experience’, ‘Different Sides of People Talking of Their Power’, ‘The Language of Rights’ and ‘Justice Overview and the Roots Shooting Up’. (Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye 2021)
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye Zebra Eye Deco Crossing, 2019, Ink on paper
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye’s practice integrates the visual, written and spoken word through print, text, image and live performance.
‘I am a writer, performer and maker of artwork. I explore the relationships between words and images, the artist as someone who listens, recording to collect the writing as well as the drawings. I want to present what I am doing in performance and reading in performance but also ask -where do people find me in the exhibition when I am not there?’ Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye
A number of significant works have been exhibited and performed in major contemporary art galleries and museums in the UK and internationally including Whitechapel Gallery London (2009), Peer, London (2018), Museum Texture Kortrijk, Belgium (2017) and her solo exhibition at the Poetry Library, Southbank Centre London (2014). In 2017 Amooquaye was awarded the Artists International Development Fund by Arts Council England and the British Council.
Ntiense Eno-Amooquaye is a member of the Peckham based collective, Intoart. Since visiting Flat Time House in 2018, Amooquaye has been in conversation with Gareth Bell Jones (Curator/Director FTHo) about the work of John Latham and sharing her own practice through his studio visits to the Intoart Studio.
Established in 2000, the Intoart studio is a site of collective action and ambitious art, design and craft production. As a collective, Intoart addresses inequalities of access, participation and leadership in the visual arts and culture by people with learning disabilities and autism.
Filmed by Holm
Art Deco Zebra Crossing 2021. Performance setting consisting of printed velvet dressing screen, silk wall hangings and silk dress
Dinner Surface 1 & 2 2019. Ink on paper
l-r Campaign of Women's Rights & Different Sides of People Talking of their Power both 2021, acrylic on card.
l-r Justice Overview and the Roots Shooting Up, Africa the New Work of Experience, Language of Rights & Showing the Words of an Outside all 2021, acrylic on card
Photography: Josef Konczak