After graduating at the Royal Academy in The Hague in 2014, Lola Keyezua returned to Luanda, where she lived from 2015 to 2019. This offered her the opportunity to research black identity and the black body. The artist has explored several media through the years, such as sculptures, photography, painting and installations in a series of artworks which carefully exhibited Keyezua’s emotions and influences inspired by life in Angola/Africa. The female body continues to be the start of her creative process as a source of inspiration, seeking to portrait pain and her very own version of a female revolution.
Due to a lack of libraries and art books in Angola, during the economic crisis in 2015, humans and their stories became Keyezua’s source of information, inspiration and research. Her research was done in slums and dangerous places to be confronted by poverty, better understand it and to hear the voice of its inhabitants without fear. Other practices explored by the artist are video art, installations and performances.
‘I am a storyteller using art as a communication tool that manages to tell more than my words will ever do. Art provokes, educates and empowers without pity. It is a powerful tool and it is in the hands of this generation to create value for our government, organizations and foundations to put artists as an integral component to the further development of culture, economics, feminism, and individual development in Africa. What makes me uncomfortable in our society is what helps me create an artwork that deserves to exist as I follow the revolution that happens in my mind when I am not satisfied with a situation that affects human rights.’
• Recent exhibition at Galerie Bart: photo basel 2022 • Never Too Old To Cut The Banana 2021 • The Great Photography Special 2020.
CV
Lola Keyezua (1988, AO/NL), graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague in 2014. One month after her graduation her robotic installation FACTICIUS was shown during the Museumnacht Den Haag in 2014 at the Dutch Parliament. By the end of 2014 Lola moved to Berlin, in May 2015 she moved back to the country where she was born, Angola and stayed there for 5 years.
Since 2015, Keyezua has been exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, France, The Netherlands, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, Mali, Nigeria, Italy, Angola, New York, Miami, Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris, Breda, Lisbon, Dublin, Barcelona, Bamako, Lagos, Rome, Luanda, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa. Those exhibitions include: Aida Muluneh-Homebound: A Journey in Photography at Sharjah Art Museum in Sharjah in 2020, NOW LOOK HERE. THE AFRICAN ART OF APPEARANCE in Amsterdam in 2020, Modest Fashion in Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in 2019 and Summer Show at Blank Projects in Cape Town 2017.
Artworks
Press
2022 •
Foam Magazine #61: Talent on shortlist of Foam Talent with Never Too Old To Cut The Banana When Erected.
2021 •
23.09 BelleVue Diese Sidekicks der Art Basel sind einen Besuch wert by Ulrike Hug-Stüwe.
21.09 The Eye of Photography Photo Basel 2021.
21.09 The Guardian Flying colours: Photo Basel 2021 gets vibrant – in pictures.
02.07 Elephant Lola Keyezua Erects a Monument to Elderly Sexuality by Charlotte Jansen.
26.04 Metropolis M Joint Opening Weekend #2: Amsterdamse galeries openen gezamenlijk hun deuren by Pernilla Ellens.
2020 •
07.04 Africa State Of Mind Contemporary Photography Reimagines a Continent by Ekow Eshun.
24.01 Fashionunited Pop-up tentoonstelling Now Look Here: The African Appearance geopend in Amsterdam by Esther Hut.
16.01 ZAM From 24.01.20, Amsterdam | Now Look Here. The African Art of Appearance, editorial.
2019 •
26.11 People’s Stories Project Lola Keyezua: A romantic realist by Jareh Das.
Hangar Atlantica: Contemporary Art from Angola and its Diaspora, editorial.
2018 •
10.12 Elephant Image of the Day – Lola Keyezua, Floating Nightmares, editorial.
02.10 BN De Stem Breda Photo / Lola Keyezua by Uma Visual Storytellers.
23.04 Dazed The Angolan artist who uses the power of photography to overcome trauma by Miss Rosen.
Sex, race & colonies, editorial.
2017 •
18.11 GRIOT FORTIA by Keyezua: A Contemporary Masked Ritual by Eric Otieno.
