In Real Life | Art Basel Miami Beach 2020

SARAH BALL, b. 1965, British

Sarah Ball’s meticulously rendered portraits explore themes of gender and identity. Demonstrating an acute sensitivity to the psyche of her subjects, she emphasises physical characteristics that define how we outwardly portray ourselves to the world. 

Ball uses source material such as newspaper cuttings, archival photographs and social media to inform her portraits. Often depicting people who celebrate self-expression and contest traditional binary norms, Ball highlights physiognomy, hairstyles, clothes, jewellery and make-up that reveal the idiosyncrasies of her anonymous, often unknowing sitters. Set against flat planes of colour and confined within closely cropped compositions, the artist lends the people within her work a surreal, timeless quality by denying the viewer any form of narrative about their identity.

Sarah Ball was born in Yorkshire, UK in 1965. She currently lives and works in Cornwall, UK. Ball studied at Newport Art College in the early 1980s and completed an MFA at Bath Spa University in 2005. She has exhibited widely including at The Royal Academy of ARTS, London; Victoria Miro, London; Somerset House, London; Half Gallery, New York and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Ball’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Kistefos Museum, Norway; British Museum, London and Rachofsky Collection, Dallas.

“Through the act of burning, nailing and assembling, I aim to address the realities of being gay in the context of Uganda and Africa in general. Recently, my working process has been fuelled by a need to find a language to respond to the recent passing of the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda.”

- Leilah Babirye.

LEILAH BABIRYE, b. 1985, Ugandan

Leilah Babirye’s multidisciplinary practice transforms everyday materials into objects that address issues surrounding identity, sexuality and human rights. The artist fled her native Uganda to New York in 2015 after being publicly outed in a local newspaper. In spring 2018 Babirye was granted asylum with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Composed of debris collected from the streets of New York, Babirye’s sculptures are woven, whittled, welded, burned and burnished. Babirye’s choice to use discarded materials in her work is intentional – the pejorative term for a gay person in the Luganda language is ‘ebisiyaga’, meaning sugarcane husk. “It’s rubbish,” explains Babirye, “the part of the sugarcane you throw out.” The artist also frequently uses traditional African masks to explore the diversity of LGBTQI identities, assembling them from ceramics, metal and hand-carved wood; lustrous, painterly glazes are juxtaposed with chiselled, roughly-textured woodwork and metal objects associated with the art of blacksmithing. In a similar vein, Babirye creates loosely rendered portraits in vivid colours of members from her community. 

Babirye studied art at Makerere University in Kampala (2007–2010) and participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency (2015). In 2019, Babirye’s work was included in ‘Flight: A Collective History’ at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (curated by Serubiri Moses) and in ‘Stonewall 50’ at The Contemporary Arts Museum (CAMH), Houston, Texas. This year her work featured in ‘Intimate Companions’ at Mary Heaton Vorse House, Provincetown, Massachusetts and in ‘Art on the Grid’, a Public Art Fund exhibition with JC Decaux on billboards across New York.

"Baldock weaves together themes of mythicism, folklore, spirituality and sensuality to explore the fleshy, malleable quality of the human form and our inner psyche... the works in this exhibition are rooted in the idea of the social skin and grapple with the disconnect between how one presents themselves outwardly and what they are inside – addressing the trauma, anxieties, mortality and spirituality around our relationship to identity, the body and the space it inhabits."

- Chris Bayley, Associate Curator at VITRINE and Curatorial Assistant at the Barbican, on the occasion of 'Me, Myself and I', Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger (2020).

JONATHAN BALDOCK, b. 1980, British

With work often taking on a biographical form, Jonathan Baldock addresses the trauma, stress, sensuality, mortality and spirituality around our relationship to the body and the space it inhabits. He works across multiple platforms including sculpture, installation and performance. Baldock’s work is saturated with humour and wit, as well as an uncanny, macabre quality that channels his longstanding interest in myth and folklore. He has an ongoing focus on the contrast between the material qualities of ceramic and fabric in his work. Concerned with removing the functional aspects of the materials he uses, Baldock instead works in a performative way through his sculptural assemblages, bringing the viewer, the object and the space they simultaneously occupy into question as a theatrical or ritualistic act.

Baldock’s solo exhibition ‘Me, Myself and I’ opened at Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway in September 2020. His work is on display in the inaugural Towner International biennial exhibition at Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, England. Baldock has forthcoming solo exhibitions at Accelerator, Stockholm, Sweden and La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain in 2021. 

The installation ‘Facecrime (suspect)’ opened at Stephen Friedman Gallery in July 2020. Baldock’s first solo exhibition with the gallery opened in September 2019 and presented a series of ceramic masks featuring bright colours and outlandish expressions. This show coincided with the presentation of a large-scale, interactive sculpture by Baldock at Fitzrovia Chapel, London during Frieze week. In the spring of 2019, Baldock’s solo exhibition ‘Facecrime’ opened at Camden Arts Centre, London following a Freelands Lomax Ceramics Fellowship. The exhibition toured to Tramway, Glasgow, UK in August 2019 and opened at Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK in March 2020.

DENZIL FORRESTER, b. 1956, Grenadian-British

Denzil Forrester's vibrant, colourful works immortalise the dynamic energy of the London reggae and dub nightclub scene during the early 1980s. Pulsating with rhythm, the artist's expressive depictions of dance halls and clubs capture crowds of people moving in unison with the beat of the music. Flashes of vivid colour, gestural brushstrokes and frenetic compositions characterise his work. Forrester explains: “I just wanted to draw movement, action and expression. I was interested in the energy of the crowd, particular dance movements and what the clubbers wore. In these clubs, city life is recreated in essence: sounds, lights, police sirens, bodies pushing and swaying in a smoke-filled room.”

Forrester’s work will feature in a major exhibition devoted to Caribbean connections in British art since the 1950s at Tate Britain, London in 2021. 'Itchin & Scratchin', a major solo exhibition of new and historical works, will travel to Spike Island, Bristol in October 2020 after opening at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham in February 2020. A large-scale public artwork by Forrester for Brixton Underground Station, London was unveiled by TFL in September 2019. Forrester's first solo exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery opened in April 2019, accompanied by a monograph with texts by Peter Doig, Matthew Higgs and Sam Thorne.

Forrester’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; Tate Britain, London, UK; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; and Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, UK. His work was the focus of three solo shows curated by Peter Doig and Matthew Higgs at White Columns, New York, USA (2016); Tramps, London, UK (2016); and Jackson Foundation, St Just, Cornwall, UK (2018).

WAYNE GONZALES, b. 1957, American

Inspired by the documentation of major events from the twentieth century, Gonzales’ meticulously crosshatched paintings examine the American cultural landscape through the visual language of photography. Gonzales’ painstakingly rendered paintings employ a rigorous formal structure to explore the relationship between photography and communal memory. His works begin with imagery from newspapers, magazines, the Internet, his own photography or that of iconic American modernists such as Walker Evans and Charles Sheeler. Emulating a photographer conducting post-production, Gonzales approaches the composition of his paintings by using digital technology to crop, edit and manipulate his source imagery. Often confined to a palette of sepia tones or hazy shades redolent of lens flare, the finished works highlight the mechanical and ephemeral feel of their sources.

Whilst the genesis of his paintings bears common ground with the photography-based political works of Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol, Gonzales insists on a shift in the perception of photographic truth. Using a distinctive crosshatching technique centred on the effects of chiaroscuro, he models form through differing densities of interlocking brush strokes to create seductive effects of light and shade. Whilst this method offers visual clarity when viewed from afar, his paintings dissolve into an abstract assemblage of interlocking lines when seen up close, recalling pixilation. By emphasising the incidental and malleable aspects of photography, Gonzales’ works call into question the accuracy and reliability associated with reportage and formal documentation.

Gonzales’ works are included in prominent international collections including Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Microsoft Art Collection, Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Palm Springs Art Museum, California and Maramotti Collection, Reggio Emilia, Italy.

DEBORAH ROBERTS, b. 1962, American

Combining collage with mixed media, Deborah Roberts' figurative works depict the complexity of black subjecthood and explore themes of race, identity and gender politics. Roberts' use of collage reflects the challenges encountered by young black children as they strive to build their identity, particularly as they respond to preconceived social constructs perpetuated by the black community, the white gaze and visual culture at large. Combining a range of different facial features, skin tones, hairstyles and clothes, Roberts explains that, “with collage, I can create a more expansive and inclusive view of the black cultural experience.”

Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator at MoMA, New York, writes: “In her mixed-media works, artist Deborah Roberts acknowledges the syncretic nature of black female identity. Debunking societal definitions of ideal beauty and dress, as well as stereotypes of social media, she questions the construction of race and the racializing gaze endemic to Western culture. Her collages and text-based works not only articulate a critique of accepted typologies of the unified self but also affirm the untold value of difference.”

Roberts will have a major solo exhibition of new works at The Contemporary Austin, Texas, USA in January 2021. Roberts' work is held in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; SFMOMA, San Francisco, California, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA; Scottish National Galleries, Edinburgh, UK/ American Patrons of the National Library and Galleries of Scotland; ICA Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA; 21c Museum Hotels, Louisville, Kentucky, USA; The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York, USA; Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois, USA; Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, Florida, USA; LACMA, Los Angeles, California, USA; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, USA; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, USA and Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

YINKA SHONIBARE CBE, b. 1962, British

Describing himself as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’, Yinka Shonibare CBE creates work that explores issues of race and class through the media of sculpture, painting, photography, film, tapestries and public works. Shonibare’s practice questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. His signature material is the brightly coloured ‘African’ batik fabric he buys at Brixton market in London. Batik was originally inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a signifier of African identity and independence.

In March 2021 Shonibare will have his largest European survey exhibition, ‘End of Empire’ at Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria. Two of Shonibare’s films were presented in the autumn of 2020 at M WOODS Art Community in Beijing, China. In July 2020 a new sculptural commission ‘Bird Catcher’s Dilemma’ opened at Salzburg Museum, Austria, celebrating 100 years of the Salzburg Festival. In February 2020 ‘Yinka Shonibare CBE: Justice for All’ opened at The Arts Centre, Singapore in conjunction with Singapore Arts Week. In July 2020 the monumental sculpture ‘Justice for All’ was presented at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2019 Tate acquired ‘The British Library’, an installation of over 6,000 books bound in Dutch wax batik fabric and exhibited this work at Tate Modern, London. Over the past decade, Shonibare has developed an extensive portfolio of public works. His sculpture, ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ was the 2010 Fourth Plinth Commission and was displayed in Trafalgar Square, London until January 2012. This work was later acquired by National Maritime Museum and is now permanently on display outside the museum's new entrance in Greenwich Park, London. In 2012 the Royal Opera House commissioned ‘Globe Head Ballerina’ and this was on display on the building’s exterior overlooking Russell Street in Covent Garden, London until 2017.  

Shonibare’s works are included in prominent collections internationally, including Tate, London, England; Arts Council Collection, London, England; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; The British Museum, London, England; The Wellcome Collection, London, England; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, Italy; and VandenBroek Foundation, The Netherlands.

DAVID SHRIGLEY,  b. 1968, British

David Shrigley's quick-witted drawings and hand-rendered texts are typically deadpan in their humour and reveal chance utterings like snippets of over-heard conversations. Recurring themes and thoughts pervade his storytelling, capturing child-like views of the world, the perspective of aliens and monsters or the compulsive habits of an eavesdropper shouting out loud. While drawing is at the centre of his practice, Shrigley also works across an extensive range of media including sculpture, large-scale installation, animation, painting, photography and music. Shrigley consistently seeks to widen his audience by operating outside the gallery sphere, including producing artist publications and creating collaborative music projects.

Shrigley was a Turner Prize nominee in 2013, following his major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, London titled 'Brain Activity'. In September 2016, his monumental sculpture 'Really Good' was unveiled in Trafalgar Square, London for the Fourth Plinth Commission. From 2015 to 2018 the British Council-organised exhibition 'Lose Your Mind' travelled to six venues including Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China; Storage by Hyundai Card in Seoul, Korea and Instituto-Cultural-Cabañas in Guadalajara, Mexico. In January 2020 Shrigley was awarded the decoration of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire or OBE. In March 2020, Ruinart Champagne announced Shrigley as its Artist Carte Blanche for 2020. The artist currently has an on-going presentation in the Gallery at Sketch, London as part of a long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants.

Shrigley’s works are included in prominent collections internationally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark; Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Vienna, Austria; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland; Tate, London, England; and The British Council, London, England; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.

"One of the things I really love doing and forefronting is the different colours that you see in black skin. The alizarin crimsons, the ultramarine blues. I never use the colour black for any of these paintings."

- Kehinde Wiley in conversation with National Portrait Gallery Director, Nicholas Cullinan (2017).

KEHINDE WILEY, b. 1977, American

Kehinde Wiley’s vibrant and highly naturalistic paintings of contemporary African-American and African-Diasporic men and women subvert the hierarchies and conventions of classical portraiture.

'The World Stage’, Wiley's vast and celebrated body of work, has focused on Brazil, China, Israel, Nigeria, Senegal and Sri Lanka to date, with exhibitions held in museums and galleries in Europe and the USA. Wiley engages the visual rhetoric of the powerful, majestic and sublime in his representation of contemporary African-American and African-Diasporic men and women who adopt heroic poses directly referencing European and American portraiture.

‘Kehinde Wiley: Ship of Fools’ opened at The Box, Plymouth in September 2020 to coincide with the launch of the new museum. In July 2020 Wiley had his first major survey exhibition in France at Centre d’art La Malmaison, Cannes, spanning over a decade of the artist’s career. In February 2020 Wiley’s first solo institutional exhibition in the UK ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, opened at William Morris Gallery, London, featuring six new large-scale female portraits. A monumental public sculpture ‘Rumors of War’, the artist’s largest work to date, was unveiled in Times Square, New York in September 2019. It was permanently installed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia in December 2019. In 2018 Smithsonian Institution unveiled Kehinde Wiley’s official portrait of Barack Obama for the Presidential Portrait Commission at National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

The artist's work features in the permanent collections of numerous prominent institutions including The Jewish Museum, New York; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; Studio Museum, Harlem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City; Saint Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri; Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and The Zabludowicz Collection, London, England.