"I am intrinsically inspired by the things to which

I am connected, and driven by an inner compulsion to enquire about and reflect on them."

ABOUT the ARTIST

Background

Born into a West Indian background, Alvin Kofi has been a professional artist for over three decades exhibiting internationally - in the US and Caribbean - as well as in the UK. He has become known as one the leading Black artists and educators of the arts in the UK Diaspora community.

Influences

My curiosity for the past has always been there and I have been taught to look towards those Western art traditions like the Italian Renaissance and Greece, but I am more naturally drawn to those traditional African cultures to which I feel I am inherently bound. Drawn to that abstract mystical world that I believe holds the key for us to better understand our surroundings and how we should live within it.

Although I am in awe of European Renaissance artistic traditions, for me they still cannot compare to the creativity and genius that influenced the world from those ancient and more recent African traditions that are rarely acknowledged and continually inspire my creative process.

My route back to establishing a visual narrative was helped by such giants as John Bigger and Charles White of the Harlem Renaissance movement who played a major part in laying a foundation for the age of modern Black visual expression.