Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies

University of Warwick

Spring Term 2020

Open to all. Refreshments provided.

Tuesday 18^th February, 5.15pm Room A0.23, Social Sciences Building

Zak Ové (b. 1966, London; lives and works in London and Gran Canaria) is a British/Caribbean artist with a multi-disciplinary practice across sculpture, film and photography. His work is informed in part through the history and lore carried through the African diaspora to the Caribbean, Britain and beyond with particular focus on traditions of masking and masquerade.

Ové’s artworks explore the interplay between old world mythology and what he posits as ‘potential futures’, a space where he reinterprets existence into the fantastical. Ové uses modern materials, a sound clash of Caribbean and African colour and the reinvention and appropriation of everyday objects to bring his characters and scenarios to life. His work is a celebration of the power of play, the spirit of imagination in the blurring of edges between reality and possibility, flesh and spirit. In this way, Ové seeks to re-write a history for the future through heralding the past in a new light.

In 2019 his work was acquired by The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, UK and Royal Ontario Museum, Canada.