Zak Ove’s Sculptural Explorations of African Identity

In Zak Ove’s sculptures, viewers find an artist using modern materials and icons to look back at centuries-old cultures. The mixed-media work moves between the futuristic and ancient in its explorations. His stated charge is to “”to reignite and reinterpret lost culture using new-world materials, whilst paying tribute to both spiritual and artistic African identity.”

“The work is born from his documentation of and anthropological interest in diasporic and African history, specifically that which is explored through Trinidadian carnival,” his site says. “His work portrays the emancipation of personal existence through incarnation with an ‘other self,’ showing us the power of play to free an individual from the contained experience of the self. This in turn is filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing, growing up in London and Trinidad.”

See more of his work below.