Enam Gbewonyo
B. 1980
Lives and works in London, UK
British Ghanaian artist and curator Enam Gbewonyo studied BA European Textile Design at Bradford School of Art and Design, and began her career as a knitwear designer in New York.
Now a practising studio artist Gbewonyo’s practice investigates identity, womanhood, and humanity through the mediums of textiles and performance. She also advocates handcraft’s spiritual healing powers, using processes like embroidery, knit, weave, print and wire-work.
Gbewonyo has exhibited with galleries and institutions such as; New Art Exchange, Gallerie delle Prigoni (Treviso, Italy), Royal Academy of Arts, FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA (Bordeaux, France), Saatchi Gallery (via Delphian Gallery), Tafeta Gallery, Bonhams and Artist Project Contemporary Art Fair, Toronto.
She has delivered performances for Arts & Heritage at London Guildhall, Two Temple Place, Christie’s, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, for Arts Territory’s Palace of Ritual which formed part of the 58th edition of Venice Biennale’s opening week collateral programme, and most recently a lives-tream performance activating Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s exhibition, Fly in League with the Night for Tate Britain.
She has created commissioned artworks for Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in collaboration with sculptor Lois Muddiman and her most recent, a solo exhibition titled Gardez L’Eau at God’s House Tower, Southampton as part of the Arts & Heritage Meeting Point programme.
Press features include; Roundtable Journal, Le Courrier De L’Atlas, Beaux Arts, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Independent, Guardian, Vogue (International, Australia, Spain and British) and Nataal magazine.
Very recently, Gbewonyo completed a residency programme at the Dakar based Black Rock Senegal, founded by Kehinde Wiley, and was the 2022 winner of The NAE Exhibition Prize, with a planned exhibition at the New Art Exchange, Nottingham UK in 2023/24.