Enam Gbewonyo
Enam Gbewonyo’s enchantment with textile making begun as a little girl with a visit to a small weaving community in her ancestral home of Eweland, Ghana. Weaving is intrinsic to the Ewe tribe’s way of life; forming part of their storytelling, their ceremony and celebration. Its processes are heralded as meditative and healing and its origins cosmic. Gbewonyo has made two new works for #100NHSRooms. She says of the donation:
“I wanted to create works that reflected the NHS healthcare workers in some way. As my wider work investigates hosiery I immediately thought of my etched print series ‘ Barely There’ which focuses on the back of a woman’s legs. It made me think of the millions of footsteps healthcare workers take in hospitals all across the country to deliver care to others. I thought of their weariness and wanted to envelop those legs in love and healing. So I worked over the original ‘Barely There’ etching with processes that both relate to my wider work and can be equated with love and healing. Processes such as staining and painting with tea, tights burnt out with dragonsblood incense sticks, embroidery and painting with metallic gold paint. In particular the tights were used to represent the feminine qualities of nurture and care while the gold paint is to evoke the healing properties of this metal. Gold is known to alleviate stress and tension, amplify positivity, stabilise the emotional system and enhance mental faculties. The works not only visually but also viscerally, in their very making set the intention to restore their audience – the healthcare workers.”
Enam Gbewonyo, Barely There, a fabric-ated hosestory I and II, 2021, burnout used nylon tights, cotton thread, tea, metallic acrylic paint and etching on paper
British Ghanaian artist and curator Enam Gbewonyo (b.1980, London) studied BA European Textile Design at Bradford School of Art and Design. Gbewonyo’s practice investigates identity, womanhood, and humanity through the mediums of textiles and performance. Gbewonyo has exhibited and performed widely around the world, most recently a livestream performance activating Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s exhibition, Fly in League with the Night for Tate Britain. Gbewonyo’s curatorial work is dedicated to highlighting artists from Africa and its diaspora and she is the founder of the Black British Female Artist (BBFA) Collective. The Collective serves as a platform to support emerging black women artists build sustainable careers whilst working to advocate for more inclusivity in the British arts landscape.
