Abigail Ekue black and white portraits on view in Brooklyn
On Saturday, September 28, 2024, Abigail Ekue Photography presents Black in Black and White at Seven House Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibit will be on view through October 14, 2024. The opening reception will be held on September 28 from 6 to 9 PM. Throughout the run of the show, various events will be hosted at the gallery.
About the Exhibition
Abigail Ekue Photography presents her fine art photography series Black in Black and White in a solo exhibit. The ongoing series features Black creatives and visionaries in dynamic black and white portraits.What started out as a personal project intended for Instagram during Black History Month has grown into a large-scale exhibit.
A curated selection of 48 portraits—created in 2020 to 2024—featuring Black artists, artisans and creatives from various disciplines ranging from music, film, publishing as well as fellow photographers are in this first exhibit. The people featured are all active in their chosen creative fields; fields plural due to multidimensions and varied interests which lead to multi-hyphenate thriving artists. To date, Ekue has photographed Aixa Kendrick, Chris Rob, Cheryl R. Riley, Sinnamon Love, Beau McCall and DeAreisha Mack for Black in Black and White.
Black and white photography is a timeless medium to display the array of beauty that exists in the diaspora. The tactile quality of B&W photography makes it a great medium to display the richness and beauty of the subjects’ features.
“Although I edit the photos in black and white, I do not Photoshop,” Ekue said. “I don’t over process skin or alter faces in my imagery. I want to maintain a rawness, texture. I’ve seen the ancestors in so many faces I’ve photographed for this series. Me being Jamaican and Nigerian, I see the kinfolk in the faces. Can’t deny the diaspora.”
The shooting set-up is minimal; a white sheet backdrop and the available indoor light. The white background was chosen to create a high contrast to the subject. “Except for two, all the artists sat for their portraits in my home. It’s a case of ‘using what you got’ and I think it also allows for the people I’m photographing—some friends, some I’m meeting and working with for the first time—to relax and let more of themselves come through.” That minimalism carries over into the presentation of the work in the exhibit.
Work from the Black in Black and White series has been exhibited and/or sold at Houston Center for Photography and B&W Athens Photography Festival. “The Right Shot,” Ekue’s image of Chris Rob — Producer. Vocalist. Pianist. Soldier. — was featured in the SHOW US YOUR ACTIVISM exhibit (2022) at Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum (Bronx, NY). In it, Rob wears a T-shirt with the message: Shoot Films Not People. Photographed in August 2020, that summer was emotionally heavy after the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.
