GODFRIED DONKOR
“I am a visual artist living and working in London…My practice is heavily based on research. I am influenced by historical fact or fiction and I use multi-mediums to produce my work. Previous works include Lord Byron's Drawing Room' installation and the 'Browning Madonna' series. I am currently working on an ongoing series simply entitled 'Financial Times,’ which uses the newspaper as a starting point.”
Godfried Donkor was born 1964 in Kumasi, Ghana and has been living and working in London since 1972. He studied Fine Art and Art History at St Martins College of Art, and the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1995. He studied Painting, as a Postgraduate student, at Escolla Massana, Barcelona.
Donkor is an internationally renowned artist; he works primarily with paint, mixed-media collages, and printmaking, and has recently started using video. His dominant theme is the iconography of mass media. Mixing styles and imagery from the conflicting sides of the political and cultural divides, he examines creolization: integration and race as a creative force.
Some of his images depict boxers, scantily dressed black women or iconic athletes, lifted from the worlds of fashion and advertising or from pornographic magazines. He has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, both in the United States and in Europe, and was Ghana's representative to the 2001 Venice Biennale. Donkor's work is in the collection of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SOLO |
||
| Once upon a time… there was lace, Wollaton Hall, Nottingham | 2008 | |
| Financial Times, Gorre Festival, Gorre Island, Senegal | 2007 | |
| Abolition 07, Hackney Museum, London | 2007 | |
| The Sable Venus and the Black Madonna, Gallerie 23, Amsterdam , Holland | 2006 | |
| Jamestown Masquerade, Walsh metal works,St Croix, USVI | 2005 | |
| Gallery Pascal Polar ( Brussels) | 2004 | |
| Financial Times, Ecole Regionale des beaux Artes, Nantes, France | 2004 | |
| The Fancy, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London, | 2003 | |
| Godfried Donkor, Recent works, The Scene Gallery, NY, USA | 2002 | |
| Godfried Donkor, Albrecht Durer Kunstverein, Nuremberg, Germany | 2001 | |
| Whose Africa, Horniman Museum, London | 2000 | |
| Wrestling and Mysticism, Dak'Art 2000, Dakar, Senegal | 2000 | |
| Slave to Champ, E M A C A, Nottingham | 1999 | |
| School of Oriental and African Studies, London University | 1994 |
GROUP
| Financial Times Mudhut, The Big Chill festival, Heredfordshire | 2007 | |
| Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery, The Whitworth Art Gallery, | 2007-2008 | |
| AFRICA SELECT, ARTCO Gallery, Herzogenrath, Germany | 2007 | |
| TransCape, Cape Town, South Africa, | 2007 | |
| L’Homme est un mystere, Musee d’Art et d’Histoire,ST Brieuc , France | 2006 | |
| Rethinking Nordic Colonialism , NIFCA , Torshavn, Faroe Islands | 2006 | |
| Collection of the Spanish Sports Council,Ses Voltes, Palma de Mallorca | 2005 | |
| Pin Up, Tate Modern, London | 2004 | |
| We Two Together: GHANA.NIGERIA: OLADAPO & GODFRIED DONKOR National Theatre, Accra, Ghana | 2004 | |
| BIDA, biennale of sports and art, Salamanca, Spain | 2003 | |
| 1st Flag, Casino, Luxembourg | 2003 | |
| Body Power/Power Play, Wurttenbergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany | 2002 | |
| Populated, IASPIS Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden | 2002 | |
| Authentic/Excentric, Venice Biennale, Italy | 2001 | |
| Africa Today, the Artist and the City, Barcelona, Spain | 2000 | |
| World Trade, Roebling Hall Gallery, NY, USA | 2000 | |
| Big River-International artist's exhibition, Trinidad & Tobago | 1999 | |
| Routes, Five artists, Brunei Gallery, London | 1999 | |
| Cinco Continentes y uno Ciudad Salon exhibition, Mexico City, Mexico | 1998 | |
| Dak' Art 98, Dakar Biennale, Dakar, Senegal | 1998 |
AWARDS
| Arts Council of England, research and development | 2004 | |
| 'Prix de la Revelation' Dakar Biennale | 1998 |
COLLECTIONS
| Spanish Sports Council Collection | ||
| National Collection of Senegal | ||
| Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC | ||
| World Bank collection | ||
| Unilever Collection | ||
| University of Helsinki | ||
| National Gallery of Botswana |
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
| Frieze Magazine | ||
| N K A Journal of Contemporary art | ||
| Third Text | ||
| Artrage | ||
| SportCult | ||
| Apex art, in Flash Art Int,11Ð12/2001 |
