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Enam Gbewonyo (born 1980 in London) is a British Ghanian textile and performance artist.



Biography
Enam Gbewonyo was born in London in 1980. She studied Textile Design at the Bradford School of Art and Design and moved to New York, USA to work in fashion design for several years before returning to the UK to pursue a career in artwork. She currently lives in London.

Career
Gbewonyo is a textile and performance artist. Her work explores themes of identity, womanhood, spirituality, healing, and human connection to nature. She draws on her Ewe Ghanian heritage to inform her work, particularly the traditions of weaving and storytelling. A recurring medium in her textile work is women's stockings and hosiery, an example of which is her mixed medium piece In the Wake of Barely Black (2019). In her work, she interrogates the history and social implications of stockings and represents where that intersects with Black women's history. Her body of work Nude Me/Under the Skin responds to the UK National Health Service (NHS)'s post-World War Two recruitment of nurses from British Colonies, using the stockings in various shades, manipulations and configurations to explore themes such as marginalisation and trauma for Black women.

Her textile craft involves knitting, printing, weaving and embroidery. Her practice also incorporates movement inspired by ballet and traditional Ewe dance.

Major exhibitions as artist

She is also a curator, working on xyz.

Henry Moore Institute 2019

Ashmolean (?)

Major exhibitions as curator

Gbewonyo is a founding member of the Black British Female Artists Collective (BBFA) in 2015. Other BBFA members include painter and performance artist Adelaide Damoah, painter Ayesha Feisal, and street artist Carleen de Sozer. The Collective aims to support Black women's artistic careers as well as advocate for inclusivity and diversity in the art world.

She was highlighted in Harper's Bazaar UK as an up-and-coming name to know by the multimedia artist Larry Amponsah in February 2021.

Works

 * Famous work here
 * Nude Me/Under the Skin (Textile series with performance). Exhibited at the Venice Bienniale 2018, Christie's
 * We invoke the Black. To Rest. (performance piece). 2020. Collaboration with Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Liz Gre at the Tate London.
 * https://enamgdesigns.com/artist-cv