Kofi Perry: Remnants from a Distant Future

The Lightbox Gallery, Woking, UK

20 April 2024 – 21 July 2024

Review by Andy Bay

Kofi Perry’s exhibition Remnants From a Distant Future showcases a series of highly refined paintings of soft-bodied entities in detailed spatial arrangements with formidable shadows. Perry, an American-Iranian artist born in 1998 in Philadelphia, paints primarily on freestanding, acrylic-primed canvases and his skilful use of lighting transforms the facial expressions of his subjects into blank slates for ritualistic images. 

In ‘The Kiln Master’ (2024), the central figure, possibly a woman, is clothed in a suit with luminescent, diamond-like beads and encircled by four nude, male figures, seemingly converging on her. In the background are three soft-focused trees and a geometrically laid out, austere villa. The emotional tone is at once detached and distinctive, stripped to its essence like a wood carving. Perry eliminates rough details, rendering the faces into unconventional masks, subtly enhanced with vibrant dark reds and browns. The catalytic function of magic is embedded in Perry’s thematic and stylistic approach, with the lingering memory of spiritual powers in full operation in his work. 

In ‘Inner Vision’ (2024), the proportionality of the figures is carefully adjusted from one subject to the next. At the heart of the composition, a halo of white lightning radiates from a large, feline-like creature. Six characters who appear to be male, once again devoid of distinct facial features, manoeuvre sizable, cuboid blocks across a desert track. The indistinguishable features of the characters – ears, eyes, noses – engender a play of opposites: linear versus concave, open and closed. The viewer is invited to juxtapose two ostensibly equal planes: the labourers on one side and the large feline on the other, both rendered in cloudy copper hues. We are prompted to construct our own relational understanding between these disparate objects, whilst also acknowledging their individuality.

 ‘Finding the Lost Vault’ (2024), uses acute angles and pyramid-like shapes, directed towards the source of a bright white light, to reconstruct the memory of elemental spirits. Once upon a time, we are reminded, the presence of these spirits was explored deep within the mysteries of the Earth. 

A stark clarity is unveiled in Perry’s paintings,  ghost stories uncovered from wood and rocks, the inventions of a culture familiar with natural forces. They conjure the dream world of a symbolic, nomadic people, whose rituals and myths are illuminated by Perry’s creative process. The enigmatic, supernatural quality that permeates his paintings defies assignment to a definitive intent. However, what emerges as the principle tenet of Kofi Perry’s art is the conveyance of traditional, otherworldly symbols.

The arrangement of each painting in the Remnants from a Distant Future exhibition is noteworthy; the distinct, architectural space of the gallery offers Perry a perfect platform to deftly emphasise the balance and form of natural symmetry. His pure articulation of meticulously calibrated visual objects draws light from darkness and reconstructs art from the beginning of time; when prayer to wood, water and rock could still call forth the Truth from ghosts and cosmic elements. 

https://www.thelightbox.org.uk/kofi-perry-remnants-from-a-distant-future