Adjani Okpu-Egbe

Adjani Okpu-Egbe (Born 1979 in Kumba, Southern Cameroon), now lives and works in London, United Kingdom. Using a crude expressive painterly language that incorporates autobiographical content, Adjani Okpu-Egbe unfolds a wide range of complex themes relating to Archaeology, Feminism, Patriarchy, African History, Pan Africanism, Afrocentricity, the African diaspora and political activism reflective of and transcending the Southern Cameroons Ambazonian movement to highlight specificities within the realm of the global social justice movement. These are sometimes spiced with direct and indirect sense of humour that gives away an interest as a keen observer of people and a social commentator. The mathematical formulae that was recurrent in many of his earlier paintings are an automatic scribble that became his distinguishing mark. These math exercises he was forced to do as a child were a repetitive sign of his relationship with his father who wanted him to abandon his dream of pursuing a career in professional football to instead become an economist or a businessman and consequently with any imposing or repressive authority have suddenly disappeared following the “passing” of the former and Adjani’s impulse and or emotional intelligence in allowing his practice to evolve naturally. The symbols that represented science and logic and became a subconscious automatic scrawl, and – perhaps the worst affront in the context of West and non-West relationships – a decorative element, has now given way to an emphatic use of unique materials suggestive of an artistic philosophical manifesto, perhaps in the near future. Often painting on found materials such as reclaimed doors and bubble wraps, Adjani’s boundless imagination and experimental curiosity allow him to take these salvaged materials to heart and use them as convincing metaphors. This is a brief review of his personal exhibitions: Surpassing the Eternally Mysterious Afro-Surreal, Sulger-Buel Gallery, London, UK (2019); Community Man IV (Benefit exhibition), Green & Stone of Chelsea, London, UK (2019); DNA, The Fourth Wall Gallery, Oakland, California, USA (2016); Poppable, Knight Webb Gallery, London, UK (2013); Letting Go, Mok Space Gallery, Bloomsbury, UK (2012).