Francis Offman's paintings and works on paper utilise an economy of means, which is key in understanding his practice as a whole.
2023 Biennial Year Find out more
For Offman it is important not to waste materials – spent coffee grounds, discarded artworks from collages, found materials and paint are all brought together for each unique work in his oeuvre. Offman’s prudence seems particularly relevant after years in which many everyday objects became sought after and environmental concerns have made recycling increasingly imperative. It is his frugality that is essential to the conceptual underpinning of Offman’s work. Whilst the paintings are all unframed, utilising no support structure, they are rich and complex and reward careful inspection. Surfaces overlap, paint and object collide to give end results that pivot between painting and collage.
Offman’s work is currently included in a group exhibition at Castello di Rivoli, Italy, as well as the 8th Biennial of Painting at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
‘Untitled’ (2019-2023)
This work is centred around a Bible that Offman’s mother took with her as their family fled the country during the genocide of the Rwandan Civil War (1990–94), when the artist was just a child.
The floor is filled with a sea of books including the Bible, an old French grammar textbook, volumes of the Universal Encyclopaedia, and records from Europeans who travelled to Africa in the nineteenth century. Each is delicately held up by callipers – instruments used by Belgian colonisers in the early twentieth century to measure the facial features of Rwandan people and classify them into racial groups. Ultimately, this racist process of segregation contributed to the murder of approximately 500,000–660,000 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Offman juxtaposes
This work is centred around a Bible that Offman’s mother took with her as their family fled the country during the genocide of the Rwandan Civil War (1990–94), when the artist was just a child. The floor is filled with a sea of books including the Bible, an old French grammar textbook, volumes of the Universal Encyclopaedia, and records from Europeans who travelled to Africa in the nineteenth century. Each is delicately held up by callipers – instruments used by Belgian colonisers in the early twentieth century to measure the facial features of Rwandan people and classify them into racial groups. Ultimately, this racist process of segregation contributed to the murder of approximately 500,000–660,000 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Offman juxtaposes this immense and recent violence with the daily pleasure of drinking coffee, a material which connects him to his home country. Coffee is a major export of Rwanda, although it was initially popularised by Belgian colonists, who forced local farmers to grow it. Offman questions the complex geography of coffee production and consumption through the gauzy fabric covered with used and recycled grounds, as well as the grounds overlaid on each book (except the red Bible and blue textbook). This layered installation reflects on the artist’s outlook that one glance is not enough to get the full picture and suggests we must have the courage to face the complexity of our pasts from various vantage points. The work is a reckoning and a self-reconciliation, which demonstrates how personal experience is central to collective histories and healing.
‘Untitled’ (2019-2023)
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Francis Offman, ‘Untitled’, 2019-23. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial, Herald St, London; and P420, Bologna. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Francis Offman, ‘Untitled’, 2019-23. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial, Herald St, London; and P420, Bologna. Photography by Mark McNulty
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Francis Offman, ‘Untitled’, 2019-23. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial, Herald St, London; and P420, Bologna. Photography by Stuart Whipps
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Francis Offman, ‘Untitled’, 2019-23. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial, Herald St, London; and P420, Bologna. Photography by Stuart Whipps
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Francis Offman, ‘Untitled’, 2019-23. Liverpool Biennial 2023 at Tate Liverpool. Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial, Herald St, London; and P420, Bologna. Photography by Stuart Whipps
