penumbras

Exhibition Dates: July 11 – 28, 2018
Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 | 6-8PM

“I wondered if perhaps the only real blackness is the blues”

Catinca Tabacaru Gallery is pleased to present penumbras, a solo exhibition by Nigerian-American artist Chioma Ebinama curated by Raphael Guilbert.

“This work is ultimately a mourning song. It is a desperate attempt to link myself to a non literary past where the preservation of knowledge (and ultimately self-preservation) was dependent on ritual and performance. It is an invitation to engage the soul. In its formation, I wondered if perhaps the only real blackness is the blues—that delicate thread connecting me between two dark continents under an unblinking white gaze.” – Chioma Ebinama

This is Ebinama’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and follows the success of Rituals for a New Direction, Ebinama’s New York debut at SPRING/BREAK Art Show curated by Raphael Guilbert earlier this year. Consisting of Ebinama’s small-scale, nuanced watercolors on cotton rag paper, this new series is a continuation of the artist’s exploration of cultural identity. First, she began with the rituals and mythologies that traditions are built on, now she continues by taking us into the physical and psychological experience of existence.

Chioma Ebinama (b. 1988 USA)
Lives and Works in Brooklyn, NY

Chioma Ebinama was born to first generation Nigerian parents and grew up in the dense Nigerian community of Maryland. Her multidisciplinary studio practice ranges from works on paper to soft sculpture. She is interested in understanding the role of the African artist in negotiating the representations of the black female body in Western culture. Moreover, her work explores how visual narrative and crafts create space for the fractured sense of identity inherent to those whose histories have been obscured by American and European hegemony over African history. In 2016 she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. She recently exhibited at the 2018 Spring/Break Art Fair, and was featured in an offsite exhibition in the 2018 Dakar Biennale.

Raphael Guilbert (b. 1992, London, England)
Raphael Guilbert is a Brooklyn-based curator. She is the Associate Director of Catinca Tabacaru Gallery where she collaborates with artists to create and build exhibitions in and outside the Gallery’s two spaces. She is one of the original members of the CTG Collective which began in Zimbabwe in 2015 and continues to created and participate in projects around the world.