Kofie continues to create some of todays most important modern urban art works within our time, establishing himself as one of the most important figures to come out of the genre. With his latest exhibition OFF/GRID at David Bloch Gallery which we previewed last week Augustine Kofie traveled to Morocco to work with local artisans as well as build an installation in the exhibition space. A large portion of the work involved the artists collage series as he mixes and remixes ephemeral textures of the past in his signature vintage palettes. These collage,  framed in his signature found ruler frames, solidify the ephemeral nature of his work. As a nautral born collector,  Kofie always pulls from his base of Southern California. These remnants of rulers leave traces of their origin stamped usually with local cities where they where found, this geographical element is interesting as Kofie travels to Morocco bring with him a piece of California. This is an accent that is prevalent throughout his collage pieces as the artist incorporates these collected graphics and textures building them into beautiful compositions as well as into a contemporary light. Another impressive showing for Augustine Kofie. Show runs till April 26. Contact@davidblochgallery for all inquiries.

GF

Photos courtesy of David Bloch Gallery

Presentation of the solo exhibition of Augustine Kofie from March 27 to April 26, 2015

OFF/GRID

#KOFGOESOFFGRID

Augustine Kofie, American artist from Los Angeles, will present from March 27, 2015 his solo exhibition “OFF/GRID” at the David Bloch Gallery – Marrakech.
The opening will be held in the presence of the artist at the gallery on March 27 at 7:00 pm.
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OFF/GRID refers to the tension that animates his work: the juxtaposition, and then synthesis, of opposing forces.

This tension operates at a number of levels. In the arena of style, the vintage and the futurist collide.

In the arena of formal composition, shapes and lines are built within a strict grid format but then break from this grid, playing off a tilt, shifting off of the established pattern, in an improvisational, freestyle experimentation.

In the arena of medium, a collage technique using industrial packaging and office supply materials from the 1950s to the 1980s is filtered—rendered contemporary—through painting.

There is the constructivism of the work, which Kofie approaches like a builder—an architect or engineer—a draftsman, not a painter, making preliminary, two-dimensional sketches of a structure, but one which will never be built.

This produces a paradoxical sense of time: the structure simultaneously exists in a future that will never take place, while referring back to a past that has been forgotten.

OFF/GRID refers to this sci-fi temporality, a push and pull between past and future, a tilt off of the grid of time.

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OFF/GRID pushes this ongoing exploration further, this time in dialogue with its context.

Kofie will be exploring oppositional synthesis by collaborating with craftsmen to produce work that merges established Moroccan artistic traditions with his own brand of American contemporary expression.

The title OFF/GRID therefore also refers to the way this body of work is made off the grid of Kofie’s usual cultural milieu.