Vigo presents Zak Ové’s first solo show with the gallery following on from his recent participation in Glasstress at the Venice Biennale.
Ové works between sculpture, film, painting and photography, often collaging the various elements using found, cast and recovered materials. He is interested in reinterpreting lost culture and mythology using modern and antique materials, paying tribute to both spiritual and artistic African and Trinidadian identities which have been given new meanings through Trinidadian carnival and the cross cultural dispersion of ideas.
A constant theme throughout the work is 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 one’s identity. This idea is filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing, growing up between London and Trinidad with a black Trinidadian father and white Irish mother.
Ové finds inspiration in Trinidadian and African Diasposic legends and folklaw. A filmmaker, photographer and music video director earlier in his career, Ové has had solo shows at The Fine Art Society, Volta New York, and the Freies Museum Berlin and has participated in international museum shows from Dakar to Paris, Dubai, Prague, Berlin, Bamako and New York.
