Zohra Opoku

Zohra Opoku by Sarah Roselle Khan for The Fifth Sense, June 16, 2017. 

“There is never only one way to express within my medium. I am able to compromise, because it is a part of my art practice and can lead to something unexpected.”— Zohra Opoku 
Many Black women visual artists are more than a singular medium. They often explore a wide range of artistic practices, not letting themselves be limited to what curators, historians, and art writers believe the work is and will always be. Although Zohra Opoku is considered a photographer, she also falls into installation, sculpture, and performance in a way that Laetitia Ky operates.  

Pyracantha, pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, 147 cm by 110 cm, 2015-2016.

Zohra Opoku was born and raised in Altdöbern, near Brandenburg, Germany (formerly the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1990) in 1976. She obtained a MA in fashion at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, Germany and received the prestigious Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award (in San Francisco, California, USA) in 2015. 

Rhododendron, pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, 147 cm by 110 cm, 2015-2016.

Opoku’s work transcends across mediums, dipping into the planes of sculpture, photography, and installation. She explores self-portraiture, playing between staring out directly or making the observer guess what those portrayed eyes are seeing, obscuring parts of her face and body that incite mystery and intrigue. For example in Rhododendron (meaning tubular-, funnel-, or bell-shaped flowers), nature takes over the compositional landscape, the draping leaves with their succulent white droplets cleverly hiding her eyes, leaving her nose and lips exposed. She wears a sophisticated, high-collared dress with a pleated heart shape at the center, cowrie shells falling down alongside the buttons, like the modern style meeting a rich, ancestral context. She leads into new realms, fairytale like, provocative, and whimsical, a Black female body engaging in her surroundings and wanting viewers to join her at a controlled distance. 

Historical narrative drives the pensive, politically edged content, lacing together figures of the past, the modern materials of stitched kente fabrics, pigments, and new found wood, bringing them into the site-specific areas of the present. 

Debie, screenprint on canvas and cotton, black tea dye, thread, and acrylic, 90” x 55,” 2017. 

In a Nataal interview with Azu Nwagbogu and Maria Pia Bernardoni of the African Artists’ Foundation and Art Base Africa, Opoku discusses her early interest in fashion and how it remains instrumental to her multidisciplinary practice:

“I had lots of beautiful experiences in the fashion business and it’s one reason why I gained an interest in making collages. With the collage there are no rules - you can just let it flow and it’s more physical than using a pencil: you can mix, cut and bring in fabric elements too. I was always intrigued by the use of so many diverse forms of media during my time in fashion, but at some point it became overwhelming and I could not grow as an artist, so I decided to stop. The design aspect is still present in my work though, as well as the passion for developing aesthetic ideas of how things should look.”

Bob’s Cloth, screenprint on cotton, jeans, and thread, 200 cm by 282 cm, 2017. 

In addition to fashion and repurposing that design aesthetic, she then discusses the importance of identity, a never ending quest that comes up often in her conceptual processes:

“There's always a little bit of contradiction. I have a permanent search for belonging, through my passion for speaking the truth, speaking my reality and staying authentic, which comes from deep within me. In the end I bring different influences together, it's a process. Most of the time I feel it is my advantage to be enrooted and to keep the drive of moving and learning about my identity and expressing it in my work.”

According to Opoku’s website, she has shown work at Gallery 1957 and Nubuke Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria, !Kauru African Contemporary Art in Johannesburg and Commune.1 Cape Town)— both in South Africa, Kunsthaus Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, Musée de l ́Ethnographie in Bordeaux, France, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Germany, The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan, USA and Museum for Photography in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Her residencies include Institute Sacatar in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil; Art Dubai Residents at United Arab Emirates, and Kehinde Wiley’s new Black Rock Residency in Dakar, Senegal.  

Dicksonia Antarctica, screenprint on handwashed paper, 2015, Southbank Centre UK. 

Zohra Opoku works and lives in Accra, Ghana and is represented by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, USA.