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These African Artists are Breaking Away from the Canvas

Discover 6 African artists working with diverse materials—braided hair, recycled plastic, and more—across varied forms, from pyrography to photography.

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An increasing number of African contemporary artists are finding new ways to create work that is both modern and deeply rooted in their real-life stories, with references to various artforms historically practiced by different cultures around the continent.

They have each intentionally freed themselves from the constraints of the traditional canvas, an approach that has resulted in meaningful and visually captivating art pieces.

Image by suteishi /Getty Images.

Chuma Anagbado

Chuma Anagbado calls himself a ‘multidisciplinary artist & designer’, creating ‘phygital’ art using technology. Fostering an identity, his themes are derived from the material and non-material aspects of Igbo culture – past and present. Ranging from wall mount to monumental dimensions, his works reimagines the age-long Igbo carved doors and ‘Uli‘ line aesthetic in patterns, fused with the body, in a spiritual performance between the abstract & figurative.

He emerged as a winner of ‘Africa Here‘, an accelerator program for African-born digital artists by Makersplace in 2022, leading to a showcase at the Scope Art Show, Miami. He has exhibited in Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Botswana, India, Canada, UK and USA. His body of work on Igbo Masquerading is in permanent showcase and collection of the Centre for Memories (CFM), Enugu, Nigeria.

He led ‘Tracing the Wild’, a dynamic data-driven art project, illustrating lions’ patterns of territorial movement and conflict with humans, to represent and conserve the predator ecosystem in Kenya’s Maasai Mara region

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