Launch event: Lady Skollie and Sofia Niazi

Join us for the launch of two new exhibitions: Lady Skollie in the Main Gallery and Sofia Niazi’s Unreal Estate in the Second Gallery.

Lady Skollie (b. 1987, Cape Town. Lives and works in Johannesburg). She uses ink, watercolour and crayon to defy taboos and talk openly about issues of sex, pleasure, consent, human connection, violence, and abuse. Her work is simultaneously bold and vulnerable, expressing the joy and darkness of the erotic and the duality of human experience. Recent international solo exhibitions include ‘Lust Politics’, Tyburn Gallery, London (2017), ‘Fire with Fire’, solo project at FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa (2017), and ‘Mating Dance’, solo project at AKAA Art Fair, Paris, France (2017). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Close: Proximity, Intimacy, Tension’, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, and ‘Right at the Equator’, Depart Foundation, Malibu, CA, USA (2018). In 2017, along with Tschabalala Self and Abe Odedina, she contributed artwork for the stage design of a gala performance of ‘The Children’s Monologues’, a benefit held by the charitable organisation Dramatic Need, directed by Danny Boyle and held at Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, USA. She has been featured on BBC Africa and CNN International on ‘African Voices’, as well as on the BBC World Service’s online and radio series ‘In the Studio’. She was also included in the 2018 edition of OkayAfrica’s ‘100 Women’, an annual list which honours women across 10 different fields for their achievements and influence.

Sofia Niazi is an artist and illustrator working and living in London. She completed an MA in illustration at Kingston University. As part of OOMK, she currently runs a community risograph print studio in Newham, Rabbits Road Press, with studio mates Rose Nordin and Heiba Lamara. She employs various digital and hand drawn techniques in her work and explores themes relating to technology, politics and animals. Sofia has produced work for Migration Museum, Museum of London, Barbican and The Guardian, amongst others. She regularly leads workshops and delivers talks about her work in community, gallery and academic settings. She is the 2018 recipient of the Wheatley Fine Art Fellowship.