Zak Ové b. 1966
In his powerful photographs, films, paintings, and sculptures, Zak Ové mines his own Trinidadian and Irish heritage, which he describes as “black power on one side and… social feminism on the other side.” His work delves into post-colonialism in Britain and Trinidad, the African Diaspora, contemporary multiculturalism, globalization, and the blend of politics, tradition, race, and history that informs our identities. Influenced by the pioneering films of his father, Horace Ové, Zak Ové began his artistic career with a series of exuberant photographs of the participants in Trinidad’s vibrant, multivalent Carnival. He later made forays into sculpture, which he approaches as a form of narrative. Through his sculptural figures, concocted from a dynamic assortment of materials, and resembling African and Trinidadian statuary, Ové plays with notions of identity, positing the self as complex, open, and interconnected.
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DP27, 2016
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Invisible Men, 2017
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Invisible Men, 2017
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Star Gazer 1, 2017
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Star Gazer 2, 2017
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Resistor Transistors 1, 2017
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Resistor Transistors 3, 2017
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Autonomous Morris, 2018
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Star Gazer X, 2018
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Ancestral Garden, 2019
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DP31, 2019
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DP44, 2019
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Hands Up, 2019
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Resistor Transistors 5, 2017
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Rumplesteelskin, 2017
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Skylark , 2017
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Lost Souls I, 2011
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Inheritance, 2011-12
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DP28, 2016
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Umbilical Progenitor, 2018
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Ougo Valee, 2013
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Starchild 1, 2017
Zak Ové was born in London in 1966. He graduated in 1987 with a BA in Film and Fine Art from the St. Martin’s School of Art, London. Today he works in sculpture, film, painting and photography, often collaging the various elements through his use of found, cast and recovered materials.
He has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including Star Liner, Lawrie and Shabibi, Dubai, 2018; Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House (Courtyard), London, 2016; Arms Around The Child, No1 Mayfair London, 2014; Speaker, Vigo Gallery, London, 2013-14; Past Future, Fine Art Society, London, 2010; and Black & White Nudes, Carte Blanche Gallery, London, 2008.
In 2014 Ové became the first Caribbean artist to be commissioned by the British Museum, with his pair of seven-metre high Moko Jumbie sculptures exhibited in the Great Court as part of the Celebrating Africa exhibition. They are now permanently installed in their Africa gallery.
He has participated in other museum and institutional shows including, Frieze Sculpture, Regent’s Park, London, 2019; Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA) and City Hall Plaza, San Francisco, 2018-2019; Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Tubman Museum of Art, Virginia, USA, 2018; Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, 2017; Twice Is Too Much, The Freies Museum, Berlin, 2010; and Blue Devils, Real Art Ways Museum, Connecticut, 2009.
His works are in several collections including British Museum, London; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Modern Forms, London; David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Jameel Collection, Saudi Arabia; Facebook Corporate Collection, London; 21 C Museum Hotels, Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Beth De Woody Collection, New York; Walid Kamhawi Collection, Dubai; Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Brussels; Levett Collection, London, and Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA and the Servais Family Collection, Brussels.
Ové currently lives and works in London and Trinidad.
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Refuge
Zak Ové at 21c Museum Hotel, Bentonville, AR 1 Oct 2019 - 1 Sep 2020 MuseumsRefuge explores the contemporary human condition through depictions of needing, seeking, and creating shelter. Ranging from paintings and photographs to model trains and boats, these multi-media artworks combine realism and...Read more -
Utopian Imagination
Zak Ové at The Ford Foundation Gallery, New York 17 Sep - 7 Dec 2019 MuseumsUtopian Imagination brings together works by artists who are imagining our existence on an imperiled planet. With the understanding that (radical) love is the answer to the violence presented in...Read more -
GET UP, STAND UP NOW GENERATIONS OF BLACK CREATIVE PIONEERS
Zak Ové at Somerset House, London 12 Jun - 15 Sep 2019A major new exhibition celebrating the past 50 years of Black creativity in Britain and beyond. Beginning with the radical Black filmmaker Horace Ové and his dynamic circle of Windrush...Read more -
STAR LINER
Zak Ové 19 Mar - 7 May 2018 GalleryLawrie Shabibi is delighted to announce Star Liner, a major new show by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové, his first solo exhibition at the gallery and in the Middle East region,...Read more
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Zak Ové in Art Africa
Art Africa -
Zak Ové in Canvas
Nadine Khalil, Canvas, June 1, 2018 -
Zak Ové in Harper's Bazaar Art Arabia
Rebecca Anne Proctor, Harper's Bazaar Art Arabia, June 1, 2018 -
Zak Ové in The National
Melissa Gronlund, The National, March 18, 2018 -
Zak Ové in Selections Magazine
Laura Egerton, Selections Magazine, March 13, 2018 -
Zak Ové in Alserkal Avenue's Folio
Anna Wallace Thompson, Folio by Alserkal Avenue, March 7, 2018
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Zak Ové
'Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness' at Yorkshire Sculpture Park April 8, 2017From 8th April, 2017 - 3rd June, 2018 Yorkshire Sculpture Park presented an extraordinary assembly of 80 sculptures by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové. 'Black and...Read more -
Zak Ové
The British Museum September 13, 2015Zak Ové's speaks about the making of the Moko Jumbie sculptures created for the British Museum and on permanent display in the Sainsbury Africa Galleries.Read more