SMO Contemporary Art company logo
SMO Contemporary Art
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Art Fairs
  • Projects
  • Viewing room
  • Video
  • Publications
  • About
  • Contact
Menu

Little Big Sister: 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London

Past viewing_room
13 - 16 October 2022
Little Big Sister, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London
SMO Contemporary Art is pleased to present LITTLE BIG SISTER, an exhibition of works by Moufouli Bello, Manyaku Mashilo and Gary March at 1.54’s 10th Anniversary African Contemporary Art Fair in London.
 
LITTLE BIG SISTER draws inspiration from the fundamental networks of guardianship, protection, and caring within African and Diasporan communities the world over. Strong family and communal bonds and the complex dynamics of the evolution of societies and the intimacy of being are explored in Moufouli Bellos paintings.  Manyako Mashilo’s portraits set in abstract cosmological landscapes delve into a plurality of rich African traditions, touching on diverse identities and the physical and spiritual inter-relationships of shared beliefs. While Gary March’s sculptures of reclaimed and recycled materials show the critical cross-section between identity, culture and the local environment in each of his creations.  Each artist brings to the surface the physical and spiritual ties which bind us, and the power of these Little Big Sister relationships: a starting point to unfolding the rich tapestry of inter-dependence, memory, ancestry, and belonging within our communities.
  • Fair Catalogue
  • Artworks

    Manyaku Mashilo

    There Is A Place, 2022
    Manyaku Mashilo (b. 1991) was born in Limpopo, South Africa and is currently based in Cape Town,South Africa. Mashilo’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses mixed media painting, drawing, and collage, addressing themes of spiritual identity, memory, ancestry, community and belonging.
     
    Drawing on inspiration from photographic archives, she depicts scenes where imaginary characters migrate through fantastical worlds between unknown places and rituals of shared belief. Mashilo’s characters are often represented through portraits set in abstract cosmological landscapes. Her scenes are visual stories that offer a plurality of imagined futures; piecing together mappings of time, place, space and making sense of a rich tradition of African spirituality and identities.
     
    Notable group exhibitions include SCENORAMA, curated by Gabi Ngcobo at the Javett Centre in Pretoria, South Africa in 2022; SMO Contemporary’s group presentation at ArtXLagos in Lagos Nigeria in 2021; 40 under 40 at Krone | WHATIFTHEWORLD in Tulbagh, South Africa in 2021 and The Medium is the Message curated by Azu Nwagbogu at Unit London in London,UK 2020; as well as Liminality in Infinite Space at the African Artists Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria in 2020.
    Manyaku Mashilo, There Is A Place, 2022
  • Photographical archives, both public and personal, can tell us who we are, and help us to imagine who we might be in the future. My concerns with most historical archives of black communities are around the way we are represented. This representation minimizes or distorts the spiritual philosophies, shared beliefs, and rich tradition of Africa and the diaspora. In my work, I seek to address these concerns.
    My process starts with extracted images from personal family archives, memory, and historical photographs as well as gathered images from instagram, fashion magazines and online blogs that give insights into the lives, movements, rituals and identities of black figures and communities in the past and present.
    I am especially interested in group photographs of black communities: people in ceremonies and rituals, on journeys, or even just images of people waiting in queues or in meetings. I see a form of musicality and spiritual energy in these images, and they trigger a deep nostalgia. I imagine what the conversations are being had, what they were waiting for, or where they were going.
    Several layers of people are cut from these photographs. I then arrange, on top of them, hand-drawn abstractions to create compositions, first as digital collages and then as large paintings that map out an imagined world where figures dressed in white, representing spirits and ancestors, migrate across cosmological landscapes, leading journeys through unknown doors and into unknown places.I would like to create scenes which free my characters from a certain idea of Blackness that is imposed or projected on them by removing them from the context of the found photographs and placing them in a different and more spiritually inspired setting: a setting that allows them to exist freely in motion or stillness and inspires journeying to a place of healing and new beginnings.
    • Manyaku Mashilo, We Are Almost There, 2022
      Manyaku Mashilo, We Are Almost There, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EManyaku%20Mashilo%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EWe%20Are%20Almost%20There%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Manyaku Mashilo, Dreams From Which I Never Wake, 2022
      Manyaku Mashilo, Dreams From Which I Never Wake, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EManyaku%20Mashilo%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EDreams%20From%20Which%20I%20Never%20Wake%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Manyaku Mashilo, There Is A Place, 2022
      Manyaku Mashilo, There Is A Place, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EManyaku%20Mashilo%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EThere%20Is%20A%20Place%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Manyaku Mashilo, Conductor of The Cosmos, 2022
      Manyaku Mashilo, Conductor of The Cosmos, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EManyaku%20Mashilo%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EConductor%20of%20The%20Cosmos%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
  • Enquire
  • Moufouli Bello

    Moufouli Bello is a visual artist who lives and works in Bénin. She began asserting her artistic practice when she participated in the realization of the Beninese monument, “L’Home Debout” , which was organized by the Zinsou Foundation in 2012. In 2016, she became one of the winners of the French Institute and the Cité Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris. There, she deepened her project,  “Papyrus”, which focused on questions of identity and the signs of community and ethnic belonging. This series was also  the subject of a solo exhibition at the French Institute of Cotonou in Bénin.
     
    In 2017 she was a selected by the artist Barthélémy Toguo, for the Bandjoun Station exhibition, “Afrique: Le grand Festin” in Vienna. In 2018, her project "We should disobey" was part of the group exhibition “Amazones” at Le Center in Bénin. Her works touched on topics of  systemic sexism, local traditions and social practices with colonial origins. In 2019 she started exploring digital and filmic mediums at the National School of Digital Arts in Le Fresnoy. Her work, "Window with a View", which she produced in the first year, was selected for the exhibition, "L'Afrique vue par ses photographes, de Malick Sidibé à nos jours " at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2021.
  • Moufouli Bello is a lawyer by training, and is passionate about digital and plastic arts. She is interested in ideological structures, such as traditions, cultures, politics and technology, which influence our perception of society, emotions, behaviors and other various mutations. Issues relating to identity, gender equality and human rights for all life forms are central to Bello’s work. Her research emphasizes the interaction between the dynamics of the evolution of societies and the intimacy of being. The artist questions the ubiquitous systemic problems at the economic and geopolitical levels, but also the influence of religions, which shape our perception of reality. She explores and combines several techniques; from painting to photography to digital manipulations.
    • Moufouli Bello, Little Big Sister, 2022
      Moufouli Bello, Little Big Sister, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3E%3Cstrong%3EMoufouli%20Bello%3C/strong%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cem%3ELittle%20Big%20Sister%3C/em%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E2022%3C/span%3E
    • Moufouli Bello, Night Birds, 2022
      Moufouli Bello, Night Birds, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3E%3Cstrong%3EMoufouli%20Bello%3C/strong%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cem%3ENight%20Birds%3C/em%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E2022%3C/span%3E
    • Moufouli Bello, Kiki is My Pet Friend, 2022
      Moufouli Bello, Kiki is My Pet Friend, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3E%3Cstrong%3EMoufouli%20Bello%3C/strong%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cem%3EKiki%20is%20My%20Pet%20Friend%3C/em%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E2022%3C/span%3E
  • Artworks

    Gary March

    A Pre-existent Civilisation, 2022
    Gary March (b. 1968) is a contemporary sculptor and designer of British and Afro-Caribbean descent. He is currently based in London, UK, where he lives and works. In 2003, he obtained a diploma in Architectural Stone Carving from the City & Guilds of London Art School.
     
    He is known for his creative use of reclaimed and recycled materials and his practice explores the cross-sections between his identity, his culture and his local environment. His works have been included in various exhibitions such as “All Kind Of Naughty” with The Thames Group Of Artist and collaboration exhibition, “BLACK SUN” with Tadeus Blower at The Brixton Art Club (2021-2022). His artist profile was also featured on Africa FashionWeek London. March's works have been commissioned by the Methodist Church Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, London to produce a wooden bench in June (2020). He also produced another commission, the Mother Earth grotesque sculpture, which is permanently located on the façade of WindsorCastle Saint George Chapel (2006).
    Gary March, A Pre-existent Civilisation, 2022
    Enquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EA%20Pre-existent%20Civilisation%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3EMixed%20media%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E160%20x%2046%20x%2021%20cm%3C/div%3E
  • Gary March’s creative process relies on the acquisition of found and discarded objects and materials. This approach causes him to stand out among his contemporaries.   He touches on the topics of human identity and culture and the ongoing debate between sustainability, environment and waste. The materials he uses in his work determine the outcome of each project, because like DNA they adapt from an old version, to this new version of the world. An opportunity to imagine a new environment
     
     Working outside in the natural world, he considers himself a soul that is experiencing the universe through creativity. Growing up in Birmingham, Midlands, an industrial town which flourished as a factory city in the 70’s, his work serves as a dialogue for discussing racial and social inequality. This was a harsh reality to live in for a Caribbean kid. Constantly hearing, “you are not good enough”, “you are too different”, March decided to control his own narrative to create an emotional exchange between unwanted materials and his own cultural experiences.
     
    Furthermore, March’s work is an effort towards not only representing the environment he comes from but to also preserve it. His artistic works are a unique way of exploring sustainability, waste and the environment. The process is challenging as March still wants his works to contain echoes of our environment, even after they have been transformed from “rubbish” to art. 
    • Gary March, A Pre-existent Civilisation, 2022
      Gary March, A Pre-existent Civilisation, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EA%20Pre-existent%20Civilisation%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Gary March, The Teller of Dreams, 2022
      Gary March, The Teller of Dreams, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EThe%20Teller%20of%20Dreams%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Gary March, Those Who Came Before, 2022
      Gary March, Those Who Came Before, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EThose%20Who%20Came%20Before%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Gary March, We Once Were Guardians, 2022
      Gary March, We Once Were Guardians, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EWe%20Once%20Were%20Guardians%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
    • Gary March, We Shall Rise, 2022
      Gary March, We Shall Rise, 2022
      Enquire
      %3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EGary%20March%3Cspan%20class%3D%22artist_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title%22%3EWe%20Shall%20Rise%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_comma%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22year%22%3E2022%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 SMO Contemporary Art
Online Viewing Rooms by Artlogic
Artsy, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
Join the mailing list

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join our mailing list

Signup

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.