Gambian artist Anna Isatou Bah in her studio at the ART27 Studio in Sanyang, a coastal town in the West Coast Region of The Gambia. Photo: Osman Kargbo, bird story agency. From selling paintings at a roadside craft market to earning an international artist residency, Gambian artist Anna Isatou Bah is helping revive the country’s overlooked printmaking traditions while building a new generation of creatives. By Osman Kargbo, bird story agency In a sunlit studio in The Gambia, layers of ink, carved linoleum and bold patterns draw on centuries of West African tradition while speaking to the realities of life today. Through her distinctive printmaking and mixed-media practice, Gambian artist Anna Isatou Bah is helping to revive traditional artistic techniques, preserve cultural heritage and introduce a new generation to the country’s rich visual identity. Her work bridges past and present, using the language of traditional West African motifs and contemporary storytelling to explore culture, identity and social change. Seven years into her career, Anna Bah continues to build her reputation in The Gambia’s art scene. While influenced by artists such as Pablo Picasso, she also credits her mentor, Ferenc Donderer, founder of the ART27 Group, whose organisation has helped provide exhibition and development opportunities for Gambian artists. After Anna completed high school in 2019, she tried to set aside her ambition of becoming an artist. The need to support herself and her mother led her into hair braiding, but the pull of art never faded. She found herself returning to memories of the classroom, where her talent had earned the admiration of teachers and classmates, and realised she could no longer ignore the desire to create. By the end of that year, she had picked up her tools again and began making art from home. She took her work to the craft market in Brikama – some 20km from Fajikunda in the Kanifing Municipality of The Gambia where she lived with her family – to sell and eke out a living to assist her siblings and mother. Anna’s journey mirrors a broader shift in The Gambia, where the creative industries are increasingly being recognised as a source of employment and economic growth. UNESCO has identified the sector as one with significant potential to create jobs for young people while strengthening the country’s cultural identity and tourism economy. Yet many artists still rely on informal markets and small galleries to earn a living. “I sat down one day, after getting fed up with the braiding I was doing and told myself: ‘I know visual arts. I used to do well in it at school. Why not go back to it and struggle with it?’ So, I summoned up the courage and dropped the braiding I was doing, and started to do my artwork at home,” Anna recalls. “After getting some collections, I started taking them to the craft market to sell,” Anna narrates. A turning point came in 2024 when Anna’s work caught the attention of Ferenc Donderer, founder of the ART27 Group, an organisation that supports and promotes Gambian artists. Donderer, also known as Mr Ferry, first met Anna at the craft market in Brikama. Impressed by the quality of her work and her commitment to her craft, he invited her to become one of the organisation’s first members. “Anna is one of the founding members of ART27,” says Donderer who has more than four decades experience as a practising artist. Since then, ART27 has supported Anna with art materials, exhibition opportunities and professional guidance, helping her develop her printmaking and mixed-media practice. “She has grown enormously as an artist,” says Donderer. “Today, I see her as one of the leading female visual artists working in The Gambia.” For many Gambian artists, talent alone is rarely enough. Limited exhibition space, few commercial galleries and scarce training opportunities make it difficult to build sustainable careers. Organisations such as ART27 are beginning to fill that gap by providing artists with studio space, professional mentoring and access to exhibitions. Donderer believes the next step is the creation of a permanent gallery or museum for West African art in The Gambia, giving artists a dedicated space to exhibit their work year-round, connect with international audiences and inspire the next generation of creatives. His vision reflects a broader shift across the continent. A recent Afreximbank study, Estimating Potential Economic Contribution of Cultural and Creative Industries in Africa, identifies Africa’s cultural and creative industries as an emerging economic sector with significant potential to generate jobs, increase exports and drive economic growth. In The Gambia, initiatives such as ART27 are helping artists like Anna translate creative talent into sustainable livelihoods through access to mentorship, studio space and professional networks. Anna works across linocut printmaking, wood relief printing, collage and acrylic painting. Her printmaking draws on long traditions of African wood carving and relief printing, techniques once used to create intricate patterns on textiles such as the adinkra cloths of West Africa. By adapting these methods to contemporary themes, she is helping revive printmaking traditions that have become increasingly rare in The Gambia. Alongside her prints, Anna creates art brut collages that combine text, found objects and unconventional materials, as well as bold abstract acrylic paintings. Her work reflects the influence of pioneering African printmakers such as Azaria Mbatha and John Muafangejo, whose experiments with relief printing at the Rorke’s Drift Art Centre in South Africa helped establish printmaking as a distinctive form of African artistic expression. Anna looks at other iconic visual artists too: “One of my role models is Pablo Piccaso. I read about him and admire what he did. I want to do great works like him,” she says. Her growing reputation has earned her an international opportunity with a first artist residency in Spain in October. The programme will include advanced training in relief engraving at the Art Print Residence in Barcelona, research at the Picasso Museum, and a mixed-media masterclass at Cherrie’s Attic Art Space in Tenerife. For Anna, the residency represents a chance to deepen her skills while learning from the artistic traditions that have long inspired her work. Anna currently exhibits and sells her work through several venues in the country’s Western Region while also teaching linocut printmaking to aspiring artists: “I run workshops for beginners who are interested in learning printmaking. They provide an income that helps me support both my work and myself.” A self-taught artist, Anna has become part of a new generation of Gambian creatives using art to preserve cultural traditions while experimenting with contemporary forms. Through her linocut workshops, she is also passing those skills on, introducing young artists to a craft that has long been overlooked in The Gambia. Today, her work reflects not only her own journey but also her belief that Gambian art has a future rooted in its past. “I’m happy because I’m doing what I love most,” Anna says, surrounded by her prints at the ART27 Studio in Sanyang. “If I can inspire someone else to pick up the tools and tell their own story through art, then I’ve achieved something worthwhile.” As Anna Bah prepares for her first international artist residency, she sees the experience not as a departure, but as an opportunity to refine her craft and bring new ideas back to The Gambia. The residency marks another milestone in a journey that began with paintings sold at a craft market and has grown into a career dedicated to preserving Gambian artistic traditions while opening new possibilities for the next generation of artists. “I am not travelling to leave,” Anna says. “I am travelling to learn and bring that knowledge back home to my country.” bird story agency
Some of Africa's most accomplished contemporary artists will converge in Addis Ababa on July 29 for one of the continent's largest international cultural showcases.
From Accra to Dakar, Marrakech to Lagos, Nairobi and now, Cape Town, art residence programs are on the rise, often initiated by successful African artists and now also by public-private partnerships.
Artist Abdoulaye Konate from Mali offers perspective on his participation in the 1-54 art fair hosted in Marrakech, serving as a platform for African artists to showcase their talents on a global scale.
“When you ask an artist living on the continent, or what we call artists from Africa, 1-54 Art Fair is like a piece of diamond. Because it's a platform, it's a market, It's an opportunity,” he stated.
The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is a significant event held in New York, London, and Marrakech, aiming to offer artists international exposure.
---- Morocco World News is an English language e-newspaper with its headquarters in Rabat and Washington, D.C. It publishes news about Morocco and MENA region on a wide range of topics, including politics, economics, international relations, lifestyle, technology, culture, sports, and Western Sahara.
Discover how African art catalyzed a revolution in 20th-century European art, particularly influencing giants like Picasso, Matisse, and Derain. Join us as we unravel the enthralling story of how West and Central African sculptures found their way into the hands of avant-garde artists, reshaping the very essence of artistic expression.
Discover how early 20th century artists, driven by a quest for new forms and meanings, embraced the spiritual depth and unique stylizations of African art, leading to the birth of Cubism and the Modernist movement.
This is when Africa's rich artistic heritage converges with the avant-garde spirit of early 20th-century Europe, forever altering the course of art history.
If you appreciate and want to hear more, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe!
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Organized by the Fashion Foundation with the support of the Moscow Government, the second Moscow Fashion Week was held from March 2nd to 7th. As part of the bilateral cooperation agreements signed at the BRICS+ Fashion Summit, directors of fashion weeks and councils from Brazil, Russia, India,...
A new podcast that expands on the African Art Market today. On this podcast, we delve into the stories of Key Industry Players in different art ecosystems on the continent. We speak to Gallerists, Art Historians, Curators, Advisors & Art Directors to get insight on their markets domestically.
Prepare to receive tips on investing in art, Valuation & Preservation, The business of Galleries, Museums & Residencies and more.
This podcast is brought to you by Art Report Africa (@Artreport.africa) & Pond Collective (@Pondcollective) .
Nairobi Design Week stands as the premier African Design Week, originally started to spotlight Kenyan designers and creativity. This year's showcase celebrates our rich traditional culture and heritage..
With a strong focus on engaging the public and fostering industry collaborations, the festival aims to cultivate a vibrant sense of community spirit.
It is hosted at Opportunity Factory/ Sandstorm Kenya, and it draws designers, artists, visionaries, professionals, and enthusiasts from across the globe.
Under the theme 'We Got This', this year's edition runs from March 9th to 17th, promising an inspiring celebration of creativity and innovation.
"Our goal is to keep striving to become a world-class Design Week and to continue inviting people to Nairobi so they can experience how incredible it is," remarked Adrian Jankowiak, Director of Nairobi Design Week.
Should you attend, I'd love to hear your feedback in the comments section upon your return.
📩 DROP ME A LINE👇🏽 For inquiries, please email me at nelimawanyonyi7@gmail.com
Alison Boyd | “Art with a Capital A: Competing Systems of Value for Dr. Barnes’s African Sculpture Collection in the 1920s and 1930s” Thursday, March 14
About the Talk As Dr. Barnes assembled his collection, he framed its ensemble displays around two key pillars: Euro-American modern paintings and African sculpture. Artists and thinkers as diverse as Alain Locke, Charles S. Johnson, Countee Cullen, Aaron Douglas, Ernest Mancoba, and Léopold Sédar. Senghor positioned their “discovery” of African sculpture around visits to the Barnes galleries or encounters with its related publications, which based the value of the objects on their influence on the development of European modernism.
In this lecture, Barnes director of research and interpretation Alison Boyd will trace how these important figures, nevertheless, used Dr. Barnes’s ideas for their own purposes and to create different meanings. The walls of the Barnes collection may appear static, but the artwork and its display sparked a dynamic conversation about the status of African art that reverberated across the African diaspora through Europe, the US, and Africa and still resonates today.
About the Speaker Alison Boyd is director of research and interpretation at the Barnes. She studies the intersection of multiple modernisms in American and European art in the first half of the 20th century, with a focus on the arts of the African diaspora and the politics of museum display. Boyd contributed to the 2023 publication The Barnes Then and Now: Dialogues on Education, Installation, and Social Justice.
Art education is at the core of our mission at the Barnes Foundation. New online and on-site adult education classes enrolling monthly. Learn more and register: https://bit.ly/3zIVfAc
About the Barnes Foundation: The mission of the Barnes is to promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.
Our founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, believed that art had the power to improve minds and transform lives. Our diverse educational programs are based on his teachings and one-of-a-kind collections.
Philadelphia art collector, Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951), chartered the Barnes Foundation in 1922 to teach people from all walks of life how to look at art. Over three decades, he collected some of the world’s most important impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings, including works by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. He displayed them alongside African masks, native American jewelry, Greek antiquities, and decorative metalwork.
On this episode of "Art Professionals Africa Unplugged, we speak to Art Consultant and Gallery Manager Morenike Adeagbo on the relationship between Gallerists and Artists, What Galleries want to see and How you can gain access to galleries in the Nigerian Local Market. Sit Back, relax and enjoy this interesting chat!
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Morenike Adeagbo is an accomplished art professional, writer and curator with over seven years of experience within the international art sector. Having worked between London and Lagos, she has accumulated a wealth of knowledge in the industry and gained a great understanding of the local and international art market. She holds a BA in History of Art & Museum Studies from the University of Manchester and an MA degree in Cultural & Creative Industries from King’s College London.
Morenike has a deep appreciation for the Black British art scene, having been born and raised in London however, she remains strongly tied to African art due to her Nigerian descent. She is currently based and living full-time in Lagos, Nigeria where she works as gallery manager at kó. She previously worked at Camden Arts Centre, SMO Contemporary Art & Kate MacGarry. She is a founding member of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), an initiative started in 2020 to develop integrated and impactful networks for driving environmental awareness within the commercial art sector. She is also a PEER London ambassador, delivering a keynote speech during the 2020 BLM protests on Race and Inclusivity within the Contemporary UK Art world.
00:00 The Context of the Conversation 01:35 Lets find out about Morenike Adeagbo 03:30 The toughest transition into the Lagos Art Market 05:28 Relationship between Galleries in The UK in comparison to Nigeria 07:39 What does the Programs Officer Role Entail 08:53 Primary purpose of an Art Gallery & How do we navigate the relationship between an artist and gallerist 13:30 Understanding How to find artists 14:50 Why is there a quickness in finding and showcasing of new artists 16:36 The Rise of Social Media sales and Lack of Education on Art Market Trajectory 20:15 How do Galleries Maintain personal and professional relationships with artists 22:58 The Most important thing about dealing with Artists 25:00 The Beauty of Witness Artists Growth 26:58 "Trust" in Gallery Representation 27:46 One piece of advice 29:40 Final Few words for Artists
With tens of thousands of African artworks in French museums, curators face a huge task in trying to identify which of these were plundered during colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries and should be returned.
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