Photo Credit: Mara Poch
Ep.116 features Cameroon-born artist Ludovic Nkoth. For him, displacement and deferral occupy a familiar place at the margins of the stories he tells. With swirled and meandering brushstrokes, Nkoth’s practice in figurative painting broaches the ongoing negotiation of transatlantic migration–a direct rumination on diaspora history and on his own expatriation to the US at the age of 13. Melding Cameroonian aesthetic motifs and vivid coloration with postcolonial allegory, Nkoth explores the formation and fragmentation of identity. Throughout his work, Nkoth’s figures participate in the fictions and lived experiences that comprise his own identity synthesis; each muddled expression and porous boundary imbues his paintings with the tender incandescence of a distant memory. The navigation of both belonging and outsiderhood in African and American spaces underscores much of Nkoth’s work and informs the future building of kinship, solidarity, and self-determination that is central to his practice. Ludovic Nkoth was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon in 1994, and lives and works in New York City. Nkoth completed his BFA at the University of South Carolina and holds an MFA in painting from Hunter College. Recent solo exhibitions include Transferred Memories (Work No Dey) (2022) at Massimo de Carlo Gallery in London, and Don’t Take This Too (2021) at François Ghebaly in Los Angeles. Nkoth was featured in the group exhibition Fire, Figure Fantasy (2022) at ICA Museum in Miami, as well as in group exhibitions at Ross+Kramer, New York, and Jeffrey Deitch, LA. His work is held in the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the ICA Museum in Miami.
Artist website https://www.lnkoth.com/
Massimo de Carlos MASSIMODECARLO
Luce Gallery Installation Views Ludovic Nkoth You Sea Us 168 1 Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea a Torino Luce Gallery
Francois Ghebaly Gallery LA Don’t Take This Too – François Ghebaly Gallery, LA 2021
PAFA https://www.pafa.org/events/ludovic-nkoth-031622
Juxtapoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/ludovic-nkoth-a-dear-statement-to-the-soul/
Ross Kramer https://rkgallery.com/artist/ludovic-nkoth
Art of choice https://www.artofchoice.co/converse-with-the-expressive-style-of-ludovic-nkoth/
Christies https://www.christies.com/features/9-intriguing-portraits-of-family-members-10998-1.aspx
Superposition Gallery http://superpositiongallery.com/conversations/2020/4/11/interview-with-ludovic-nkoth
Francois Ghebaly http://ghebaly.com/work/ludovic-nkoth-dont-take-this-too/
“Aliennation”, acrylic on canvas, 56” x 80” (2022)
“In Search of Reparations”, acrylic on linen, 78” x 98” (2020)
“Night Watch”, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 48” (2022)
“Protected from Protection”, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 48” (2021)
