Mawuena Kattah
About the work
Mawuena Kattah's practice draws upon an extensive personal archive of family photographs taken in Ghana over the past two decades and more recent studio photographs of family taken in London. She brings people and pattern together in complex, vibrant compositions that entangle an aesthetic and social syntax. Through immersive installations that place textiles, painting and ceramics together to create semi-domestic spaces within the gallery or museum, Kattah invites her audiences to share in her multi-layered experience of collectivity and kinship.
Biography
Kattah’s paintings, prints, ceramics and textiles have been exhibited in major contemporary art galleries and museums in the UK, including acquisition of works by the Arts Council’s National Collection and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Kattah’s work has been shown in significant group exhibitions in the UK including, ‘Criminal Ornamentation’ Curated by Yinka Shonibare MBE, ‘Walls Have Ears: 400 Years of Change’, Aston Hall (2018), Whitechapel Gallery (2009) and Studio Voltaire (2012) and solo exhibition at Tenderbooks (2016), following a placement in the Victoria and Albert Museum ceramics studio to develop a new body of work.
Solo Exhibitions
2016
Ceramics, Textiles & Works on Paper, Tenderbooks
Selected Group exhibitions
2020
Collect 2020, Somerset House - Winner of Outstanding Display
Tell me the story of all these things - Firstsite Gallery Colchester
2019
Arts Council Collection - Touring Exhibition ‘Criminal Ornamentation’ Curated by Yinka Shonibare MBE
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter / Longside Gallery (YSP), Wakefield / Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton.
2018
Arts Council Collection ‘Walls Have Ears - 400 Years of Change’ Aston Hall Birmingham
Art in Focus: Pots and Podiums - St Mary's Hospital, London
Peckham Craft Weekend, Copeland Gallery
2017 - Fashioning Space - Victoria and Albert Museum
2012 - SV12 Members Show, Studio Voltaire
2011 - Verovisation, MAD Musee Belgium
2009 - See the Revolutionary Art Exhibit, Whitechapel Gallery
Collections
2020 - Large Glazed ceramic tiled Frieze acquired by Victoria & Albert Museum
2016 - Three painted portraits on paper acquired by Arts Council Collection
Solo Publications
2016 - Mawuena Kattah, Ceramics Textiles and Works on Paper. Published by Intoart
Group Publications
2018 - Criminal Ornamentation, Hayward Gallery Publishing
2010 - See the Revolutionary Art Exhibit. Published by Intoart
2007 - The Studio Project: Opening Art Practice. Published by Intoart
Film Screenings
2018 - Ceramics, Textiles & Works on Paper - Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival Korea (Crafts Council)
2017 - Ceramics, Textiles & Works on Paper - Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival London (Crafts Council)
2016 - Ceramics, Textiles & Works on Paper - Victoria and Albert Museum
2014 - Intoart Archive, Tate Britain
2010 - A film made according to instructions by Mawuena Kattah with Lenka Clayton, Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery
Press
Elle Decoration October 2020, Crafts Magazine May 2018, Guardian 2017
Intoart
Mawuena Kattah became a member of the London based collective Intoart in 2007.