Zak Ové UK-Trinidad, b. 1966

Overview
Anansi's Dance, 2023, Vintage kente swatches, antique piano keys, vintage recycled Ghanian glass beads, copper nail aluminium and birch ply stretcher
Anansi's Dance, 2023 Vintage kente swatches, antique piano keys, vintage recycled Ghanian glass beads, copper nail aluminium and birch ply stretcher
Zak Ové (b. 1966, London. Lives and work in Las Palmas, Canary Islands) is a British-Caribbean artist with a multi-disciplinary practice across sculpture, film and photography. His work is informed in part through the history and lore carried through the African diaspora to the Caribbean, Britain and beyond with particular focus on traditions of masking and masquerade as a tool of self emancipation. Ové’s artworks explore the interplay between old world mythology and what he posits as‘potential futures’, a space where he reinterprets existence into the fantastical. Ové uses modern materials, a sound clash of Caribbean and African colour and the reinvention and appropriation of everyday objects to bring his characters and scenarios to life. His work is a celebration of the power of play, the spirit of imagination in the blurring ofedges between reality and possibility, flesh and spirit. In this way, Ové seeks to re-write a history for the future through heralding the past in a new light.
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Exhibitions
Biography
Photo: Ric Bower
Photo: Ric Bower
Ové’s solo presentation The Invisible Man and The Masque of Blackness of 40 sculptures exhibited alongside works by Rodin, was on view in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden at LACMA, Los Angeles, CA from 27 July - 3 November 2019. The same year Ové exhibited Autonomous Morris at the Frieze 2019 outdoor sculpture park, London. Ové has presented solo sculpture installations in the Great Hall at the British Museum, London, UK; San Francisco Civic Centre, San Francisco, CA; Forecourt of Somerset House, London, UK; The New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury, UK and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK. He is currently working on new public sculpture commission in the USA. Ové’s work features in a number of museum collections throughout the world, as well as in private foundations and collections such as Royal Ontario Museum, Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; British Museum, London, UK (where it is the first work acquired by a Caribbean artist); Newark Museum, New Jersey, USA; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, USA; Modern Forms, London, UK; David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK; Jameel Collection, Saudi Arabia; Facebook Corporate Collection, London ,UK; 21C Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Beth De Woody Collection, New York,USA; Walid Kamhawi Collection, Dubai, UAE; Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Brussels,Belgium; Levett Collection, London, UK; Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA; Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE, Ibrahim/Eliasson Collection, Lisbon/London. He curated the seminal and widely acclaimed exhibition, GET UP STAND UP NOW:Generations of Black Creative Pioneers at Somerset House, London in 2019. The exhibition was featured in The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, IDMagazine, Vice and The Evening Standard, amongst others.
Download Artist's CV (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
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