Drawing is at the heart of Karo Akpokiere's practice. With it, he fuses experiences and observations he gets from everyday life with his current interests in patterns, textiles, printmaking, to tell stories of a personal and/or political nature.
For Akpokiere, his approach to drawing is twofold. It revolves around how drawing can be used to project political, social, and personal realities and concerns itself with harnessing the power that drawing offers for ‘play’; play as a metaphor for spontaneous, creative freedom and the making of open-ended narratives that may be fictive and/or non-fictive.
Akpokiere's work straddles the line between fine art and graphic design and in doing so, questions the traditional hierarchies that exist between both disciplines.
For Akpokiere, his approach to drawing is twofold. It revolves around how drawing can be used to project political, social, and personal realities and concerns itself with harnessing the power that drawing offers for ‘play’; play as a metaphor for spontaneous, creative freedom and the making of open-ended narratives that may be fictive and/or non-fictive.
Akpokiere's work straddles the line between fine art and graphic design and in doing so, questions the traditional hierarchies that exist between both disciplines.
Akpokiere's work has appeared extensively in international exhibitions including IV Biennial of Montevideo (2019), The 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paulo (2017), The 56th edition of La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2015).
Akpokiere has also worked on commissioned projects for -
Brands: Nike Europe. Google, San Francisco. Moncler, Italy. Oliberte, Canada, WeTransfer, Amsterdam.
Agencies: Ralph Appelbaum Associates, London. Noah's Ark, Lagos.
Institutions: Mousontrum Frankfurt. Griffelkunst, Hamburg.
Karo Akpokiere lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.
For a detailed exhibition, work, and publication history, please click CV
Brands: Nike Europe. Google, San Francisco. Moncler, Italy. Oliberte, Canada, WeTransfer, Amsterdam.
Agencies: Ralph Appelbaum Associates, London. Noah's Ark, Lagos.
Institutions: Mousontrum Frankfurt. Griffelkunst, Hamburg.
Karo Akpokiere lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.
For a detailed exhibition, work, and publication history, please click CV
Photo: Dagmara Wojtanowicz