b. 1993, Lagos, Nigeria
Lives and works in London, UK
Alexander Ikhide is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in photography, collage (analogue/digital), painting and drawing, exploring ideas of the body as well as a merging of photography and painting to produce mixed media abstract works on paper. Through a method of gestural abstraction and mark making, taking on influence from an abstract expressionist painting tradition alongside ideas and themes from the surrealist movement, utilising disparate source material through image juxtapositions as collage, that have origins and roots in pre-colonial African spiritual practices and rituals. He incorporates African symbols and ideograms that are present in sculptural works, textiles, architecture, woodwork and carvings that carry spiritual, cultural and ritualistic meanings. A coming together of these influences to formulate a hybridized aesthetic begins to materialise in his works, transforming the ways in which African centred aesthetic traditions that have been relegated to 'primitivism' can be utilised in contemporary discourse and located within the canon of modern art. The personal, cultural and political are intertwined, as a means to process through and understand the layered dimensions of being a person of both African and queer identity.
EDUCATION
2022 MA Photography, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2014 BA (Hons) Contemporary Art & Professional Studies, Bath Spa University, Bath, UK
EXHIBITIONS
2024 Becoming Visible (Digital), Autograph, London, UK
2023 Homotopic, Cromwell Place, London, UK
2022 The Black Effect, Hogan Lovells, London, UK
2022 In Conversation, Shapero Rare Books Gallery, London, UK
2022 RCA Degree Show 2022, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2021 KingDom, Arts Hub Studios, London, UK
2017 Diaspora Dialogue, Winn’s Gallery, London, UK
2017 Unhinged: Ain’t I Beautiful? III, Project Mission Gallery, London, UK
2017 People of Colour : Colouring, Forty Seven Ldn Gallery, London, UK
2014 Past, Present, Future, AACDD (African and Afro Caribbean Design Diaspora) Festival, London Design Festival, Oxo Tower, London, UK
2014 The Lonely Londoners: Keep the water Coloured, Trispace Gallery, London, UK
2013 Moving on, AACDD (African and Afro Caribbean Design Diaspora) Festival, London Design Festival, Oxo Tower, London, UK
TALKS
2023 How do you become a patron saint of darkrooms?, Autograph, London, UK
2021 Sensing the image: Photographers in conversation, Cubitt Gallery, London, UK
WORKSHOPS
2025 Experiments with Image/ Mediums and Materials in Dialogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2024 Collage Workshop : Reimagining Self, Autograph, London, UK
AWARDS
2021 Imperial College EDI Portrait Prize
COMMISSIONS
2021 Black Britain : Writing Back, Penguin Books UK, Cover Art Commission
2020 Kensington and Chelsea Art Week (KCAW) x High Street Windows, Window Installation
2018 AFROPUNK x 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning : People – Art – Resistance, Zine Commission
PUBLICATIONS
2023 The Black Joy Project, Harper Collins, New York, United States
2022 Yellow Zine - Issue 04 - New Traditions, London, UK
2021 Musée Magazine, Issue No.25 - Curation, New York, United States
2020 Portrait of Humanity Vol 2, Hoxton Mini Press, London, UK
2018 Afropunk x 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning - People/Art/Resistance Zine, London, UK