Adjani Okpu-Egbe

Adjani Okpu-Egbe, born in 1979 in Kumba, Cameroon, has a multidisciplinary practice that engages with a wide range of subjects including identity, autobiography, history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, archaeology, iconography, spirituality, feminism, mythology, war and activism.  Often painting on non–traditional supports, such as door panels, and incorporating everyday objects such as books, mouse traps, bubble wrap, artificial plants, hair and glitter, Okpu-Egbe’s work is informed by the artist’s imaginative and experimental curiosity.

Having studied archaeology and the history of political thought in Cameroon, Okpu-Egbe joined the British Army in 2007 to access travel, play football, gain further education and test his own politics and activist theories internationally. He began to paint as a soldier for therapeutic reasons, leading to an unusual exhibition history which starts in 2008 with a solo show at his military base in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK. In 2012 Okpu-Egbe was one of the artists commissioned by the BBC to create artistic interpretations of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pageant on the Thames in London. 

Okpu-Egbe was the inaugural recipient of the Ritzau Art Prize (2021), in collaboration with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair and the International Studio and Curatorial Programme (ISCP), New York. The prize included a five-month residency and an exhibition, and the artist’s first solo presentation in the US, at the ISCP titled “On Delegitimization and Solidarity: Sisiku AyukTabe, the Martin Luther King Jr. of Ambazonia, the Nera 10, and the Myth of Violent Africa.”

Adjani Okpu-Egbe lives and works in London.