Ekene Stanley Emecheta
Green Era

The Breeder is pleased to present Green Era, Ekene Stanley Emecheta’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Emecheta’s work is characterized by a distinctive use of color and compositional technique and his iconography of figures is drawn from both fantasy, history and his private world. Each canvas starts with the intentional elimination of the protagonist’s skin color, over which Emecheta frames the subject’s posture and characteristics. Diverting the attention away from the skin color, he draws our focus to the figure itself and its surroundings broadening the interpretation and inviting the viewer to become physically and emotionally invested in the subject’s story.

In this new body of paintings, Emecheta pays homage to collective and familial memories. The scenes depict episodes from historical moments or different phases of the artist’s life. Placed against backgrounds that are either monochromatic or inhabited by lush vegetation, the figures gaze directly back at the viewer, claiming agency for their stories.

Often Emecheta positions figures of African descent in places they usually are not accustomed to thereby disrupting the historical narrative. His portraits aim to capture the essence of the human condition, revealing fragments of the protagonist’s stories and identities. Each painting functions as its own narrative, resulting in an exhibition that resounds the complex relationship between our interior worlds and the external environments that we inhabit.

Born in 1994, Ekene Stanley Emecheta is a self- taught artist, living and working in Abuja, Nigeria. His solo exhibition “Truthful Waters”, hosted at The Breeder in Athens in summer 2021 was reviewed at Frieze Magazine. His works are included in the collections of X Museum in Beijing, Xiao Museum in Rizhao, China, Akzo Nobel Foundation in the Netherlands, Comma Foundation in Belgium and Up Next Art Museum in Puerto Rico.