Kristin-Lee Moolman
Africa is a continent made up of 54 countries, which translates into such cultural diversity that at times can only be best exemplified through photography. With a photographic tradition that has been in intense transformation since the 1950s, spawning masters of portraiture like Seydou Keïta, there is now a new generation of artists from Africa and the diaspora expressing the rich visual language of today. Currently on show at Redhook Labs in New York, these are the six emerging African artists exploring the continent’s eclectic sub-cultures you need to know.
Atong Atem
Atong Atem is a Melbourne-based South Sudanese artist and writer. Her work explores the relationship between public and private spaces and the politics of looking. Atem studied painting at Sydney College of the Arts in 2012 and she won the inaugural MELT Portrait Prize.
Delphine Diallo
Delphine Diaw Diallo is a French Senegalese artist based in New York. With a mixed medium approach to photography whereby she juxtaposes tradition with modernity, Diallo has worked for the New York Times, The New Yorker and Converse.
Lakin Ogunbanwo
Bridging fashion and photography and classic portraiture, Lakin Ogunbanwo creates enigmatic images with an erotic and subversive. He was born in Lagos and studied law in Nigeria and the UK before moving into photography in 2012. Additionally, the British Journal of Photography has tipped him as one of 25 Ones to Watch.
Kristin-Lee Moolman
Kristin-Lee Moolman explores the idea of creating a fictional mythology or place, based on the synthesis of her political, personal and visual experiences in contemporary South Africa. Based in Johannesburg, the artist and filmmaker has worked for publications including Dazed and L’Officiel Hommes.
Namsa Leuba
The work of Swiss-Guinean Namsa Leuba challenges the way in which the west still exoticises contemporary notions of Africa. The photographer artist explores that theme through fashion photography that also transgresses the boundaries between art and design.
Owise Abuzaid
Owise Abuzaid is a photographer and filmmaker based in Cairo whose work centres on an abstract approach to form and content. In 2015 his “Yellow Shirt” series won two prizes in Egypt and this year he was selected for the New York Times Portfolio Review.
All images courtesy of Redhook Labs and the artists