Marcellina Akpojotor

HOFA Gallery, London

Acquired from the above by the present owner

"The women in my works are passionate, confident, goal getters, self-aware, strong yet vulnerable and they are evolving. ’’

Marcelina Akpojotor cited in: She Curates, Marcelina Akpojotor, 2020 (online) 

The present lot is a standout example of Nigerian artist’s Marcelina Akpojotor’s entrancing portraiture. Living and working in Lagos, Akpojotor utilizes both collage and painting techniques to explore gender equality and female empowerment in Africa today, offering a powerful representation of the unwavering strength and quiet confidence of her elegant sitters.

Whether through her culturally charged material choice, multi layered collage technique, or exploration of gender roles and women’s activism, Akpojotor’s work celebrates ideas of complex identity and the difficult realities and the many layers of our stories, both as women and as Africans.

Set to Flourish I showcases a woman at rest in a moment of quiet reflection against a pot. Both the figure and the pot are created out of collaged patches of Ankara cloth, a technique that Akpojotor began in 2013 using fabric scraps sourced from different tailors in her neighborhood. A deeply political and culturally significant material, the Ankara or ‘Dutch wax’ method was invented in the Netherlands in the 19th century to mass-manufacture traditional Indonesian batik fabric quickly and cheaply for export to their colonies in the Dutch East Indies. These lower quality fabrics were not well received by the East Indian market, prompting traders voyaging on the Cape Route to sell their wares in West Africa during their refuelling stops. This practice gave birth to the deep and long-lasting association of these cloths with Africa and African identity, despite never being produced on the continent. For Akpojotor, the act of layering the different patches of cloth in different ways, in many layers, echoes the many layers of her sitters. Collage provides the artist with the freedom to explore and to bring together stories and materials in new and interesting ways. 

Akpojotor discovered her love for art while helping her sign-writer father with sketching, drawing and calligraphy projects. Like him, Akpojotor went on to study art and industrial design at Lagos State Polytechnic, where she began to formulate her signature abstract style.

In 2017, Marcelina Akpojotor was selected for the Rele Arts Foundation Young Contemporaries exhibition and was awarded the Ronke Ekwensi Salon fellowship. Group exhibitions include: Orita Meta, (2021), Rele Gallery, Los Angeles, BLACK VOICES: Friend of My Mind, (2020), Ross Sutton Gallery, New York, Sisters: The Art of Nigerian Women (2018) at Carnegie Gallery, Ohio, and the Young Contemporaries Alumni Exhibition (2020) at the National Museum, Lagos.