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Lot Essay
Marcia Kure is a Nigerian-born artist who works across drawing, collage and sculpture. She creates an alien universe populated with strange and mysterious figures and creatures: they are both beautiful and strange, alien yet familiar. Kure draws from West African mythology as well as contemporary magazine cuttings to create work which imagines an alternative world, mapping new narratives and amalgamating elements from across cultures and across histories. In this way Kure has developed a clean and sharp multimedia aesthetic which probes history, memory and imagination.
James the Son of Zebedee is a collage made from magazine cuttings featuring disparate items combined with one another to form a figure. Head bowed, the alien figure appears totally clothed and it is unclear what kind of creature lies within; assembled from juxtaposed forms, the clothes could be considered avant-garde haute couture. Kure’s deft technique creates a new identity from pre-existing forms, positing a postmodern, post-colonial state of fragmentation and building anew.
Marcia Kure lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey. She studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and is a prominent member of the University of Nigeria based Nsukka School, known for its socio-political vision and lyrical simplicity. Kure’s work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2019); Wanås Konst Sculpture Park, Knislinge (2019); Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta (2016); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2014); and La Triennale, Paris (2013). Kure’s work is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C; The British Museum, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
James the Son of Zebedee is a collage made from magazine cuttings featuring disparate items combined with one another to form a figure. Head bowed, the alien figure appears totally clothed and it is unclear what kind of creature lies within; assembled from juxtaposed forms, the clothes could be considered avant-garde haute couture. Kure’s deft technique creates a new identity from pre-existing forms, positing a postmodern, post-colonial state of fragmentation and building anew.
Marcia Kure lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey. She studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and is a prominent member of the University of Nigeria based Nsukka School, known for its socio-political vision and lyrical simplicity. Kure’s work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2019); Wanås Konst Sculpture Park, Knislinge (2019); Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta (2016); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2014); and La Triennale, Paris (2013). Kure’s work is held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C; The British Museum, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.