We are delighted to welcome and present recently elected Royal Academician, artist, Sikelela Owen RA, to her first solo exhibition in Lagos and on the African continent.
Owen coheres a loving eye on family intimacies and connection in her paintings, of which her gestural style, softly, and atmospherically transposes the patina of her own youthful experiences and memories with her present sightlines on her growing children, family and friends, of whom she captures at leisure, play, downtime at home, or at excursions in the outdoors.
Where My Gaze Falls pays attention to the nature and spirit of communion, particularly the familial and sociocultural events that underpin and shape our everyday encounters. Alongside the influence of 19th century Impressionist painters such as Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) who were capturing the conditions of new urban life and leisure in turn of the century France, Owen recollects the relative independence, ease and freedom of being outdoors during holidays spent with family in Zimbabwe and Jamaica. Her young sons growth and flourishing friendships, inquisitiveness and exploration correlate with another earlier period in her life facilitating and witnessing the small transformations and learning of pre-teen and adolescent charges at summer camp in Markham, Virginia, United States.
Owen and her partner's personal milestone of becoming parents on the onset and during the Covid 19 pandemic is another present reference⎯ joyous and full of learning, during a period marked by great loss, isolation, and restricted access to public space. Each subsequent lift of the restrictions renewed a sense of common rights to green space for all to enjoy, of which municipal parks are a regular meeting point for not only Owen and her family and friends, but countless others who don't have homes with gardens.
Where My Gaze Falls takes viewers through these constellations of memories which are annotated with wall-drawings made in situ by the artist.
