Born in 1982 in London, United Kingdom
Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Esiri Erheriene-Essi is predominately a painter of mid to large-scale paintings concerned with figuration, history and society. She is captivated by history – in particular, images, objects, and documents which we can return to, in order to examine both individual and shared memories and histories. A large part of her practice entails collecting and creating an archive, which could potentially become incorporated into her work. Archives are important to the artist as they create links and orders that she can question and play with – she searches for the discrepancies, the silences, in order to, through painting, create interruptions and assaults on the canonical historical narrative. With hindsight, bias and curiosity, she takes these discordances and brings them up to the surface. Erheriene-Essi continuously re-edits the narratives with the hope of robbing history of some of its tyrannical power by creating new scenarios. Or rather, she is incessantly attempting to imagine more humane and liberating narratives than what has gone before. In the process she perhaps slightly changes our readings of history and thereby shows how we write the present.

In her work, Erheriene-Essi makes many references to popular culture, because popular culture is profoundly mythic and loaded. The canvases she makes are a theatre of popular desires and fantasies, where we all can discover and play with the process of identification. These ‘theatrical scenes’ show the imagined as well as the underrepresented, not only to the viewer but also to the artist herself. The paintings ‘play’ in their own way – they are telling a story, even though the scenes have no beginning, middle or end – they are cut off mid flow, out of context, are frozen, silent and still. Yet they have ‘sound’ as if they are performing and want to be heard. The audience is continuously invited to watch as well as to try and decipher the haphazard plot in which characters are encased in. The good thing about performing on canvas is that anything is possible – and that is what intrigues Erheriene-Essi the most.

esirierheriene-essi.com

Born in 1987 in Thrissur, Kerala, India
Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

With an MFA in Painting from S.N. School of Arts, University of Hyderabad, and a BFA from Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur, Hisham’s artistic journey is deeply rooted in his upbringing in India.

Drawing inspiration from the Safavid, Mughal, Rajput, and Deccani art traditions, Hisham crafts portraits and tableaux that are mysterious and evocative. His scenes often depict his native India, yet the characters transcend geographical boundaries. Central to his work are themes of shared histories, hierarchy, and power, with a particular focus on religious conflicts and caste systems.

Hisham’s artistic expression finds form in paintings on canvas and wood, dry pastel, wood carvings, and casting powder. Working with powdered pigment, he sculpts from dust, echoing the belief that humans are created from and return to dust after death. Some pigments used by Hisham are derived from mined minerals, symbolizing the eternal cycle of creation and transformation.

Exploring the notions of desire, death, and memory, Hisham’s body of work delves into the multi-layered profundity of these themes, intertwining them with the social and cultural spaces he inhabits. He draws inspiration from various sources including cinema, pop culture, art history, mythology, and religion, inviting viewers to decipher the rich metaphors and symbols embedded within his art. In addition to his two-dimensional works, Hisham is currently exploring sculptural installations that delve into memories of inner space, exploring their potential connections to the idea of the Self.

Katinka Lampe traverses the realms of figurative, expressionist, and abstract painting in her soft, yet uncanny, portraits. Her works, though imbued with a sense of realism, are not meant to represent those that they depict. Resemblance is not the defining characteristic of these pieces. Instead, the artist sees the figures as visual impressions that, once transformed by her gaze, become representative of larger themes within society, rather than the individual.

Lampe often uses accessories loaded with connotation to provoke loose characterizations of theme and mood. The imposed roles played by her models, their poses, expressions, and their way of being dressed, mostly copied from magazines, the internet or old master paintings, obscure their personality and provoke deeper and subjective meaning in the minds of the viewers. Through these juxtapositions the artist explores important societal themes relating to identity, aging, color, and the ever-growing dependence on media.

Katinka Lampe is an artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She received her degree from the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost in ‘s Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally in a variety of galleries, museums, and prominent art fairs such as Museum Arnhem, Arnhem,NL: Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, NL; Singer Museum, Laren, NL, Museum Jan Cunen, Oss, NL ; Untitled Art San Francisco, USA and Untitled, Art, Miami Beach, USA. Her work is included in the collections of 21C Museum Hotels, USA; West Sun Capital Collection, Montreal,CA: Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, NL; APMA, AmorePacific Museum of Art Seoul, KR; Museum van Loon, Amsterdam, NL; C.N.A.P Centre National des Arts Plastique, Paris, FR; Museum More, Gorssel, NL; Schunck*, Heerlen, NL; Akzo Nobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam,Nl; De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, NL; ING Collection, Amsterdam, NL; Art Curial, Paris, FR; Frisseras Museum Athens, GR, and Cobra to Contemporary/The Brown Family Collection.

Katinka Lampe was born in 1963 in Tilburg, NL
She lives and works in Rotterdam, NL

https://katinkalampe.nl/

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi is a self-taught Nigerian artist from Kogi state. He holds a Bachelors in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering from the University of Ilorin. His practice is primarily centered around portraiture and impressionistic realism, working with various media to portray individual narratives, as he believes everyone has a unique story to tell.

Oluwaseyi sees himself as a critic and an observer. His paintings are influenced by societal and political injustice, racial conflict and pressures of modern life. Working in oil, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, he uses bold and vivid colors representing human figures with visible and striking brush strokes to give his paintings a strong physical presence. “I try to combine unusual mediums to show I go beyond the borders of religion, race and tradition”, he says.

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi navigates through the intricate struggles that form the backbone of individual tales of existence, working with various media to tell the stories of individuals in society. His art works are impregnated with the struggles and experiences of individuals, evoking strong feelings of hope and redemption in the minds of viewers who connect with his pieces.