moniquemeloche is delighted to announce the representation of artist Luke Agada, whose first solo show at the gallery Arms, Feet, and Fitful Dreams is on view through October 28. The artist will be present on Saturday, September 30th from 3-6pm for Chicago Exhibition Weekend.
Lagos-born Luke Agada's practice examines themes of globalization, migration, and cultural dislocation within the framework of a postcolonial world. His abstracted paintings present warped figures and dream-like compositions as symbols of hyphenated identities and reference the transformation of the art's historical postmodern human figure. Considering how both time and space produce complex bodies of difference, Agada’s works address the ambiguity of our identity within post-structuralist theory. Agada, a self-taught artist who came to the US to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, reflects on the instability of the transitory human. His surrealist-like paintings of disembodied figures floating in ethereal spaces reference the present moment of transit formed where time and space in a postmodern world intersect to produce complex bodies of difference and identity, past and present.
Luke Agada (b.1992, Lagos, Nigeria) received his MFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) (2023) and a DVM at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (2018). He has had recent national and international exhibitions with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2023); African Artist’s Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria (2021); and Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana. He has also been a recipient of various awards and fellowships including The James Nelson Raymond Fellowship Award (2023); Dean’s Grant, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2023); Janet and Russell Doubleday Award at The Art Students League of New York (2022); The Helen Frankenthaler Award at SAIC in (2022); George and Ann Siegel Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2021); Global Warming International Art Prize, New York, New York (2020). Agada is a 2023 Summer/Fall fellow at MASS MoCA’s Studio Residency. He lives and works in Chicago, IL, and is currently teaching at SAIC as a lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department.
