Xanthe Somers i Yacout Hamdouch
James Barnor at October Gallery, London
July 2 – August 15, 2026
July 2 – August 15, 2026
October Gallery continues its season of Contemporary African Art, with a stimulating exhibition that pairs new works by Zimbabwean ceramicist, Xanthe Somers, with colourful paintings by Moroccan artist Yacout Hamdouch, who is exhibiting her work for the first time in the UK. In our second gallery space, a Spotlight on selected photographic works by internationally renowned photographer, James Barnor, complements this vital and energetic exhibition.
Read more: Xanthe Somers
Informed by postcolonial insights, Somers introduces a new series, Carer, Cleaner, Mother, Maker, as she continues to explore her underlying themes: the work of women, the exploitation of cheap labour and the impact of eco-racist practices throughout the Global South. Her practice is situated within the political and historical context of an area in Zimbabwe deeply affected by the colonial construction of the dam that created the world’s largest artificial lake, Lake Kariba.
Somers weaves together three age-old disciplines – clay pottery, basket-making and textiles – to create a novel visual language. Each of these distinct traditions has long served as a powerful medium for storytelling. Yet, despite being shaped and refined by generations of women, the stories they carry have too often been overlooked. In these new works, Somers not only reimagines these crafts but also amplifies the voices and narratives woven within them. Inspired by weaving in Zimbabwe, her telling forms are hand coiled then disrupted by puncturing and deforming, before she revitalises them through the addition of meticulously painted details.
She comments, ‘I think weaving in general is a visceral way to speak about the domestic. These vessels while referencing grass basketry, also depict blankets, kitchen cloths and other humble textiles that quietly signal care within the home. Weaving becomes a wider metaphor for social cohesion, or lack thereof. While this tension is acutely felt in Zimbabwe, it resonates globally, where women’s work continues to be systematically undervalued.’
Yacout Hamdouch presents works from two recent series, Poetic Landscapes and Fertile Rainbows. Poetic Landscapes reflect on memory’s ability to capture moments suspended in time, which, even if rare and fleeting, can be both powerful and profound. In these works, Hamdouch traces the process by which what she calls ‘mirages’ develop.
Read more: Yacout Hamdouch
Memory sculpts the mirage, which transforms into a landscape that becomes a window allowing us to frame in review those precious, transient moments. In Fertile Rainbows, the artist invites us to consider the complexity of human emotions that bind us all together, by uniting line, layer, form and colour.
These subtly graded works evoke something indefinable,
ambiguous and even elusive that offer us the outlines
of a map upon which we might locate ourselves.
ambiguous and even elusive that offer us the outlines
of a map upon which we might locate ourselves.
October Gallery
24 Old Gloucester Street
London WC1N 3AL, United Kingdom
Źródło: Ceramics Now
