Muzae Sesay: born on the earth.

Tiwani Contemporary presents the debut solo exhibition, Muzae Sesay: born on the earth.born on the earth. is an ongoing, psycho-geographic assessment of the Earth we are placed onto and thus acts as a reflection of the artist’s neighbourhood in Oakland, California as a metaphorical device inferring more universal sociological ideas.

Each painting its own mundane romantic soliloquy built from an instinctive response that reflects on Sesay’s daily interactions and thoughts about his community and the larger environment. Within this body of work, the juxtaposition of nature and built infrastructure helps illustrate a more complete idea of landscape in relation to the artist. A dark rhythmic pattern indifferent of morale or judgement emerges as a central device within Sesay’s work.

Critically on local and global levels, the omnipresence of deforestation and gentrification paired with a lack of direct agency has contorted changes in our environment as natural phenomena. A pacifying feeling of ambivalence towards how to reckon with these changes is expressed by a sense of underlying love and hopefulness through a robust colour palette suppressed by shadow. Sesay’s scenery remains straddled between a fleeting sunset and a mysterious midnight hour. Philosophically, we ask what part does aestheticism and beauty play in his abstract compositions of these life-changing events?

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