Enam Gbewonyo (b. 1980, London) is a British Ghanaian artist and curator who lives and works in London. She is also the founder of the Black British Female Artist (BBFA) Collective – a platform that supports Black women artists. Gbewonyo studied BA European Textile Design at Bradford School of Art and Design and began her career as a knitwear designer in New York. Following six years in the industry, redundancy prompted her return to the UK and subsequent career change.
Her art practice investigates identity – womanhood in particular, whilst advocating the healing benefits of craft. She uses performance as a vessel, creating live spaces of healing that direct audiences to a positive place of awareness, countering systems of oppression such as racism and sexism. Her work enables audiences to face the truth of the dark past surrounding colonial legacies and the emotions it brings forth.
Recent exhibitions include Neo-Custodians: Woven Narratives of Heritage, Cultural Memory and Belonging at Bemis Center in Omaha, USA, Body Poetics at Southampton’s GIANT Gallery, and Rites of Passage at Gagosian London. Her work has been exhibited and showcased internationally at the 58th Venice Biennale, Art X Lagos, and UNTITLED Art Fair Miami to name a few.
Gbewonyo is represented by London-based gallery TAFETA, who specialise in 20th-century and contemporary African art. Her works are in several private and public collections including Fondation H, Madagascar and White & Case LLP, UK. She is a 2022 recipient of the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award and winner of the 2022 Dentons Art Prize and New Art Exchange Future Exhibition Prize respectively. She is also a fellow of Kehinde Wiley’s acclaimed Black Rock Senegal artist residency as well as Bemis Center, Omaha, USA.
Recent press coverage includes; Art Monthly, Artsy, Guardian Saturday, Roundtable Journal, Le Courrier D’Atlas, Beaux Arts and Harper’s Bazaar UK.
