Tuesday 17th September 2024 at 6:30 PM

Francis Offman (b. 1987, Butare, Rwanda) lives and works in Bologna, Italy. His wall pieces and installations are constructed from reused materials, including gifted and discarded fabrics, spent coffee grounds, expired bandages, and scraps of paper, which have been painted and glued together. Originally from Rwanda, the artist has resided in Italy since he was a child and currently lives and works in Bologna. While his compositions are always abstract, each item used within them contains a narrative associated with a local or global history. For example, he frequently incorporates Bolognese plaster as a binding agent, and his use of coffee ties his country of birth, where it is an important commodity, with his place of residence where it is embraced as a nationally adored drink. Offman’s textured and layered surfaces mine multiple visual and historical influences, inviting a rich and complex reading.

Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include My Dreams Were Destroyed on Your Walls, DEO projects, Chios (2024); Economics of Painting, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (2024); The Invention of Europe. A tricontinental narrative (2024-2027), Kunst Meran, Merano (2024); Norval Sovereign African Art Prize, Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2024); uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Biennial (2023); La Biblioteca del Mondo, Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2023); Herald St, London (2023); Sensing Painting, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin (2023); Italian Painting Today, Triennale Milano, Milan (2023); Arte circolare, MAXXI, Rome (2023); RETROFUTURE, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2023); Museo delle Opacità, Museo delle Civiltà Romana, Rome (2023); Recent Acquisitions and Eternal Loves – Part I, Nicoletta Fiorucci Collection, Rose de France, Monaco (2023); The 8th Biennial of Painting: The ’t’ is Silent, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem (2022); Quotidiana: and Paesaggio, Quadriennale di Roma, Museo di Roma, Palazzo Braschi, Rome (2022). In 2023, Offman undertook a residency at Gasworks, London. His work is included in the collections of Frac Bretagne, Rennes; Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli; MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome; The University of Warwick Art Collection, Coventry; and The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. 

Monica Fernandez-Taranco is the Senior Director at Modern Art, a contemporary art gallery in London. She was born in Paris, France, and studied Art History at McGill University (Montreal, 2009), followed by a postgraduate degree in Art Business at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art (London, 2010). Alongside her involvement with many of the UK-based institutions, Fernandez-Taranco also has a longstanding relationship with London’s South London Gallery and has been a member of the organisation’s Development Committee since 2022.

Lewis Dalton Gilbert is an independent curator and the creative director at A Vibe Called Tech; a creative agency and art consultancy dedicated to approaching creativity through an intersectional lens.

Following his BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, he coordinated and produced exhibitions and projects for White Cube and Frieze and is currently the associate curator for New Art Centre, where he previously served as creative director. In 2021, he curated the Hackney Windrush Art Commissions with Thomas J Price and Veronica Ryan OBE, for which Ryan won the Turner Prize.

Recent curatorial projects include South by Southwest at Gurr Johns (2024), Pictures of Us at Gathering, London (2023), We Share the Same Sky on Vortic Art (2023), Abstract Colour at Marlborough Gallery (2023) and Peripheral Vision at Anna Schwartz Gallery (2022).