According to Paris’s Perrotin Gallery, London-based artist Emma Prempeh is opening a new exhibition exploring dual identities and the concept of home through layered paintings featuring subjects like Saint Vincent coconut trees and London telecommunication towers. Prempeh’s mixed-heritage background—born in Britain to a Saint Vincent mother and a Ghanaian father—informs her visual vocabulary, which she discusses alongside influential works by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Andrew Cranston.
Emma Prempeh’s New Exhibition at Perrotin Gallery Explores Diaspora and Memory
Opening at Paris’s Perrotin Gallery, Emma Prempeh’s latest exhibition examines the complex experience of holding multiple places in one’s mind while feeling slightly out of place in any single location, according to exhibition notes. Her canvases juxtapose disparate geographies. Coconut trees native to Saint Vincent appear on English streets, while the Crystal Palace transmitting station in London watches over a Ghanaian elementary school. To convey the fading nature of memory, Prempeh layers imitation gold leaf onto these scenes. As the metal oxidizes over time, it changes and fades.
Did you know? Emma Prempeh uses imitation gold leaf in her paintings because the metal oxidizes and changes over time, physically mirroring how human recollection of a place shifts and fades.
How Kudzanai-Violet Hwami Inspired Prempeh’s Approach to Abstraction
According to Prempeh, a 2017 exhibition by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami at Goldsmiths University profoundly shifted her artistic direction. Hwami’s painting “Family Portrait” featured color applied in a colliding, scribbling manner that combined portraiture and abstraction. Before seeing the show, Prempeh struggled to loosen up her own practice, attempting to make portraits look as clean as possible. Hwami’s work demonstrated a freedom in depicting only the parts of each person the artist remembered most, prompting Prempeh to paint with greater ease.
Andrew Cranston’s Atmospheric Techniques and Institutional Playfulness
Andrew Cranston’s 2021 exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield museum in West Yorkshire, England, directly influenced Prempeh’s subsequent curatorial and technical choices, according to the artist. Prempeh notes that Cranston’s painting “Echoes” successfully utilized a deep maroon color instead of black to depict evening light. Cranston also experimented with bleach and dye to create spatial awareness. Beyond technique, Cranston’s inclusion of humorous diary-like paragraphs and his playful exhibition title, “What Made You Stop Here?”, inspired Prempeh to incorporate text into her own 2024 show at London’s Tiwani Contemporary to counter the sterile atmosphere of traditional art institutions.
“Cedrus Libani” and the Portrayal of Foreign Flora in British Landscapes
In her upcoming work “Cedrus Libani” (2026), Prempeh examines how foreign elements integrate into local environments, using a cedar tree in London’s Crystal Palace district as her central subject, according to the artist. The cedar tree, which is not native to the United Kingdom, dominates the skyline alongside Victorian architecture. Prempeh compares the thriving, non-native tree to herself and those around her, noting that the tree sits comfortably in its adopted home despite heritages that have historically been points of contention.
Pro Tip for Art Enthusiasts
When examining contemporary diaspora art, look closely at how artists use non-traditional materials—such as oxidizing metals, bleach, or text integration—to evoke personal history and the fluidity of memory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Emma Prempeh’s new exhibition located?
According to gallery announcements, Emma Prempeh’s newest exhibition opens at Paris’s Perrotin Gallery.
What specific artwork inspired Emma Prempeh during her studies?
According to Prempeh, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s 2017 painting “Family Portrait” inspired her to experiment with abstraction and loosen up her portraiture style.
Which museum featured Andrew Cranston’s “Echoes”?
According to Prempeh, Andrew Cranston’s work was featured in his 2021 show at the Hepworth Wakefield museum in West Yorkshire, England.
What does the cedar tree represent in Prempeh’s painting “Cedrus Libani”?
According to the artist, the non-native cedar tree in “Cedrus Libani” serves as a parallel for herself and others whose heritages are foreign to their current surroundings.
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