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Her Alchemy: Inside the all female summer exhibition reflecting a convergence of culture
By Shivani Dubey | 12 July 2024 | Arts, Culture
Her Alchemy is a showcase featuring 13 diverse female artists from 10 different countries and is HOFA Gallery’s fourth all female group exhibition
Ayobola Kekere-Ekun, Her Alchemy Exhibition, HOFA Gallery
What does the word alchemy mean? Google will tell you many definitions, but one of them states that it is “any seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new”. And that is what HOFA Gallery’s new summer exhibition Her Alchemy is all about.
Her Alchemy is HOFA Gallery’s fourth annual all-female group exhibition that features 13 international, diverse female artists from 10 countries around the world — Nigeria, Hong Kong, China, United Kingdom, South Korea, Ireland, Australia, The Netherlands, Belarus and Mexico.
This showcase, which runs from 12 to 25 July, is described as a celebration and a powerful statement on the “transformative experience of art that informs and shapes cultural perspectives influenced by the diverse world around us.”
Some of the artists featured include Ayobola Kekere-Ekun, Jade Ching-yuk Ng, Orlanda Broom and Wang Ziling. And they are all very excited to be showcasing their works alongside each other.
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Wang Ziling, Her Alchemy Exhibition, HOFA Gallery
“I’m really pleased and honoured to be part of the line up for this exhibition. I’ve been a huge fan of quite a few of these artists for a long time, particularly Ilhwa Kim,” says Ayobola. “I’m really excited to see so many female perspectives in one space.”
The pieces Ayobola has contributed to the exhibition are from a body of work called ‘The Real Housewives of Old Oyo’, where she reimagines goddesses in the Yoruba pantheon as cast members in a reality TV show.
“I think they speak to very timely conversations around how women are still very underestimated in our society,” says Ayobola.
According to Orlanda, the opportunity of seeing works from different artists come together in alchemy is also exciting.
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Orlanda Broom, Her Alchemy Exhibition, HOFA Gallery
“[To me], the word alchemy conjures up a kind of dark art mixed up with a bit of science,” says Orlanda. “My work has always been very concerned with materials and the process of painting, of paint in its own right. It evolves on the canvas and the composition is led by the way it moves and flows… this is a kind of alchemy.”
“The work of the other artists in the show I can see is also about materiality and process and it’s interesting to see so many approaches,” she adds.
So what is it that they hope viewers take away from this exhibition?
“I hope the viewer will take a moment to reconsider what they think they know and how they think they know it,” says Ayobola.
Ilhwa Kim, Her Alchemy Exhibition, HOFA Gallery
Orlanda, meanwhile, hopes that her artwork and the exhibition invite questions about when and where these strange forms exist. And that they take note of the diversity on display.
“There are familiar motifs that I use within my work, floral forms that relate to the body and themes around life cycles and old making way for new. So I hope some of these ideas come across and people will take away a lasting impression of the diversity of work on show as a whole,” she adds.
As Ayobola says, alchemy is the “fusion of ideas that could potentially be life changing.” And that is exactly what this exhibition looks like it will be.