Refuge: An uncommon home is a collaborative exhibition showing artworks by the 2021 Absa L’Atelier Ambassadors Dr Adelheid Frackiewicz from South Africa, Ayobola Kekere-Ekun from Nigeria, and Michael Blebo from Ghana.

Through paintings, sculptures and installations, the artists reflect on past trauma and, in doing so, address their fears of the past while carving a sense of what is to come. The artists reimagine their home so that it becomes a refuge from, rather than a site of, past traumas. The works are all incredibly personal, and with a combination of found objects and traditional art materials, each artist has worked towards finding tranquillity in their personal space and letting go of their anxieties.

Absa Senior Specialist Art Curator Dr Paul Bayliss says, “These anxieties stem from a lost childhood due to trauma, a fear that something could happen or due to intergenerational anxiety passed down. It is through reimagining their home, which is not only a physical space of materiality, that it becomes a refuge from what was.”

The exhibition launches on Thu, Nov 17 on the Absa Art Hotspot and opens at the Absa Gallery on Fri, Nov 18.