Vigo

About the Gallery
Vigo was founded in 2011 and represents emerging and established international artists, curating shows in the public and private arenas as well as placing historic and contemporary works into the collections of prominent museums and Foundations. We have placed almost two hundred works in institutions, including TATE Modern, The British Museum, MoMA, The Ashmolean Museum, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Arts Council, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and The Metropolitan Museum. Exhibitions have been organised with institutions including Somerset House, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, San Francisco City Hall, The Prince Claus Foundation, City of Prague Gallery, Hastings Contemporary, Smithson Plaza, The Drawing Centre NY, Kunsthalle Zurich, Tegnerforbundet and Wellington Arch.

In addition to our contemporary focus and primary program, the gallery shines light on historically significant yet undervalued artists with strong museum and curatorial followings. We have a developed long-term interest in the African diaspora and African American artists although our program is international working with artists and estates from Belgium, America, Australia and Japan alongside our British contingent.

About the Presentation
Vigo will present work by Ibrahim El-Salahi & Jordy Kerwick in a duo presentation at Independent.

Ibrahim El-Salahi (b. 1930, Sudan) is a pioneer of African Modernism who created a revolutionary visual language by integrating Sudanese, Islamic, African, Arab, and Western artistic traditions. Following his studies at the Slade School in London and his return to Sudan in 1957, Ibrahim developed his distinctive aesthetic that led to his historic 2013 retrospective at Tate Modern - the first given to an African artist. Our presentation features 13 Horse Riders drawings inspired by Sufi mysticism, depicting spiritual knights who appear during dawn prayers in Sudan's White Nile region.

Jordy Kerwick (b. 1982, Australia) creates paintings that mine archetypal imagery and ancestral memories through a compellingly naïve aesthetic. Since beginning his artistic practice in 2016, the self-taught artist has gained international recognition, with works held in major collections including the Thyssen Museum, Madrid. At Independent, Vigo will present two large-scale paintings featuring his characteristic zoomorphic hybrids and mythological creatures.

The pairing creates an intriguing dialogue between El-Salahi's spiritually rooted modernism and Kerwick's contemporary exploration of primordial imagery. Though separated by geography and generation, both artists challenge artistic conventions through their distinctive visual languages – El-Salahi through his pioneering fusion of traditions, and Kerwick through his intentionally unlearned approach to ancient archetypes.