Synopsis
Duncan Wylie (b.1975) is an artist based in London. Harare-born, Wylie's painting practice mines from a sensibility that is directly connected to his experience as an African artist living and working in Europe – first in Paris, where he studied and became a citizen, and latterly in London, where he now lives and works. His striking, colour-drenched paintings move from the intimate to the apocalyptic, offering thoughtful and powerful observations about the modern world, its infrastructure and institutions, ideologies and identities. This publication is Wylie's first major monograph, documenting twenty years of work, from early paintings focused on urban destruction, through to the emergence of figures in his canvases, whether tightrope walkers, African dandies – ‘sapeurs’ – or water diviners. Themes of displacement, entropy and resistance resulting from colonial legacies recur in his works, which encompass and layer images of urban chaos with the flotsam of uprooted lives. Swimming pools, their surfaces variously reflective or opaque, are increasingly prominent, offering a critique of resource access and restriction. Steeped in art from an early age, Wylie's work is acutely connected to the history of painting, and the relationship between British and French painting. His mother was a curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, which housed items from the Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture movement as well as the Courtauld Collection. Trained under artist Helen Lieros while in Zimbabwe, Wylie subsequently moved to Paris, completing his Master's degree at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1999. He has exhibited in group surveys at numerous important institutions including the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Musée de Grenoble, and, in 2017, the inaugural exhibition of the Louvre, Abu Dhabi, among others. He has been the subject of several solo shows, most recently with Backslash gallery in Paris. In her foreword, Adelaide Bannerman, Curatorial Director of Tiwani Contemporary, a gallery devoted to artists from Africa and its global diaspora, introduces readers to Wylie's wide-ranging practice and the scope of the book. Juliette Singer, a champion of Wylie's work for over a decade, talks with him about the notion of time in his work, with a focus on the suspension and collision of different moments and geographies within a single image. They cover Wylie's evolution as an artist, from his breakthrough in 2005, which emerged in response to Robert Mugabe's enforced clearing of Zimbabwe's slums, to the vivid mise-en-scènes of his most recent paintings. The publication is divided into chapters introduced by Zimbabwe-based educator, critic and gallerist Valerie Kabov that trace this evolution across distinct but interconnected bodies of work. Curator and writer Marc Donnadieu provides a contextual essay, examining Wylie's painterly techniques and dynamic juxtapositions of themes. Duncan Wylie was born in 1975 in Harare, Zimbabwe. He received his Master's from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1999 and became a citizen of France in 2005. He now lives and works in London. He is co-author of the book Zimbabwe: Art, Symbol and Meaning, a vital document to Zimbabwe's rich, vanishing, art. Edited by Laura Allsop and designed by Joe Gilmore, the book has been produced by Hurtwood and published by Anomie Publishing, London.
About the Authors
Duncan Wylie (b.1975) is a Zimbabwe-born artist based in London, with a Master's degree from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has had recent solo shows at Backslash gallery, Paris, and participated in recent group exhibitions at the Fondation Blachère, Bonnieux, France, and Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, Paris.
Marc Donnadieu is a Paris-based curator, researcher and art critic writing regularly for Art Newspaper, French edition. He was most recently Chief Curator of Photo Élysée (Cantonal Museum for Photography), in Lausanne, Switzerland, and before that curator of contemporary art at Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art.
Valerie Kabov is an educator, critic and gallerist based in Zimbabwe focused on emerging practices, cultural economics and engagement. She is the co-founder of First Floor Gallery Harare (2009), Zimbabwe's pre-eminent contemporary art space. Kabov is the co-founder of the African Art Galleries Association and EPI pan-African emerging painting prize.
Juliette Singer is Director of the Palais des Beaux-Arts and the Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, in Lille, France. She served as Chief Curator at the Petit Palais in Paris between 2020 and 2024, and from 2016 to 2020, as chief curator of modern and contemporary art at the recently inaugurated Louvre, Abu Dhabi.
Adelaide Bannerman is a curator based in London. She is Curatorial Director at Tiwani Contemporary, a gallery devoted to artists from Africa and its global diaspora.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
