BIO
Othello De’Souza-Hartley is a London-based mixed media artist who explores aspects of human expression and its suppression in contemporary society.
Applying minimal gestures to maximum effect, De’Souza-Hartley merges personal experience into visual investigations of prevailing quandaries and contradictions. Working predominantly in photography, moving image, drawing, performance, and painting, the human body is at the core of his practice, either directly as a subject or indirectly via the marks and layers applied to canvas.
Inspired equally by the subjective gaze of classical paintings and notions of non-duality in Eastern philosophy, by the geometry and texture of Modern architecture and improvisation in experimental music or contemporary dance, De’Souza-Hartley’s practice is not confined by medium or genre.
Observations relating to gender and race are a recurring theme in De’Souza-Hartley’s work. An ongoing investigation into the complexities of male identity encompasses portraiture of self and others, visually captured in photography and painting and supplemented by video and sound.
His Masculinity project has received extensive press coverage and was nominated for Peer to Peer, a curated snapshot of contemporary photography in the UK and China in 2019.
His work has been exhibited widely to critical acclaim and is held in private and public collections, including Autograph London.
Prior to receiving an MA in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, in 2011, he studied at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, and at the Royal Drawing School, London.
CV
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 Materia Gallery, Rome (Italy) | ‘Intimations’
2020 Koppel Project Exchange, London (UK) | ‘Catalogue of Emotions’
2018 Campo XXV Aprile (Rome Art Week), Rome (Italy) | ‘Own Narrative’
2018 Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London(UK) | ‘I AM’
2011 The Underground Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Masculinity’
2006 Platform for Art at Westminster Station, London (UK) | ‘Connected’
2005 Camden Arts Centre, London (UK) | ‘Black in Northwest’
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 International Exchange Project, Seoul (Korea) |’Love Your Depot’
2022 Anticlone Gallery at William Blake House, London (UK) | ‘The Diaspora’
2022 Impressions Gallery, Bradford (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community – Self & Other’
2021 Centraal Museum, Amsterdam (Netherlands) | ‘Voices of Fashion. Black Culture, Beauty and Styles’
2021 Autograph, London (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community - Self & Other’
2020 OFFSHOOT Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Masculinity’
2019 Shanghai Centre of Photography, Shanghai (China) | 2019 Photo Fair Shanghai ‘Peer to Peer’
2019 Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (UK) | ‘Peer to Peer’
2018 Outside The Zone Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Before the Last Moment’
2016 Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Rites of Passage
2012 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘The World in London’
2012 Zabludowicz Collection, London (UK) | ‘Centrefold 8: The Circle of Manias’
2007 National Portrait Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Four Corners’
COMMISSIONS
2020 Autograph, London (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community - Self & Other’
2015 The Museum of Liverpool, Liverpool (UK) | ‘L8’
2010 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘The World in London’
2008 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Stylees’
2007 National Portrait Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Four Corners’
2006 Platform for Art, London (UK) |’Connected’
RESIDENCIES
2017 Ugandan Arts Trust, Kampala (Uganda)
2005 Camden Arts Centre, London (UK)