Chilli Art Projects | RMB Latitudes 2024

For Latitudes 2024, Chilli Art Projects are pleased to present a group presentation bringing together the work of 4 artists all exploring the concept of ancestry and experience.

Both Richard Mensah & Daniel Santangelo’s expansive paintings blur the boundaries of object and image - the resulting relic-like works blending contemporary culture with ancestral & historical source imagery to reflect on the experiences of Black people today and in the past. Santangelo’s Italian heritage combines with his Ethiopean-Ertitrean background, resulting in a blend of Western and Eastern religious painting and mythology, as well as a chiaroscuro-esque use of directional light which radiates into and out of both objects and people. These surreal, dramatic dreamscapes strike an interesting balance between peace and power that is somewhat reminiscent of Afrofuturist aesthetics. The use of gold leaf in Mensah’s works gives them a similarly spiritual quality that echoes religious painting. His mode of storytelling, as well as the breadth of marks and surfaces gives the work a tapestry-like quality - distant narratives, scenarios and geographies are stitched together to reflect on his own journey and identity.

This layered nature of working is also reflected in the works of both Justice Mukheli and Birhane Worede. These artists share a ghostly quality similar to Santangelo, but with a more ambiguous approach. Worede in particular layers loose, washy marks - using transparency and light to build up radiant sunscapes that reflect his family history and touch on notions of love and death.

The phantasmic flows of Justice Mukheli’s crisp works explore his relationship with spirituality and his ancestral past. These supple blended works often take dreams as a start point, allowing him to reflect on his subconscious thoughts and his spiritualism to converse with reality. As such the work is often instinctive, with Mukheli allowing himself to be visually led - letting the work take him where it wants to go. This fluidity represented in the works reflects the spiritual journey of his thoughts, as well as the process of making the painting itself. Sharing a similarly fluid process, Richard Mensah allows his subconscious to draw on personal memories of the past to combine with research undertaken by the artist himself. Mensah adopts the swimming pool as a symbol to reflect on the wider societal barriers that faced black people in the past, as well as now. These figures are often presented deep in reflection of thought, much like Worede and Mukheli - referencing the cognitive and spiritual connection between the present and the past. Mensah uses circular portals to directly link these figures to their ancestral ties, whilst the metaphysical environments of Santangelo’s canvases are also reflective of this black ancestral experience - referencing the cultural ties that bind continental Africans and those of the African Diaspora.

In each case, these artists portals transport the viewer to worlds where both formal and figurative elements appear in harmony - exploring colour, gesture, history and ancestry in a multifaceted and nuanced manner.

This show runs from 22 - 26 May 2024.