Francis Offman
Francis Offman
Born in Butare, Rwanda, Offman now lives and works in Bologna. Since graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna in 2019, Offman has gone on to be the subject of several solo and group exhibitions, including Herald St, London; David Zwirner, London; and P240, Bologna, among others.
Frugality is the essential underpinning to Francis Offman’s practice. Salvaged bread wrappers, discarded shoeboxes, remnants of dried coffee grounds left over from his own morning cup, and paint, are collaged together on his canvas.
Offman grew up in the lush farming town of Nyanza, Rwanda, and moved to Bologna as a preteen. It is this dual sense of belonging that constitutes the leitmotif to his abstract, fragmented compositions. In his search for a connection between these two lives, Offman found coffee—a commodity grown in Rwanda as a crop export, and drunk excessively in cafes across Italy and beyond. Offman will use the brown pigment in its varying shades to colour his surfaces which overlap and collide.
Offman’s artworks are all devoid of titles; a decision that suggests the idea of a map or tribal tapestry. Viewers are free to project their own orientation of the world onto these ambiguous patchworked plains.
Frugality is the essential underpinning to Francis Offman’s practice. Salvaged bread wrappers, discarded shoeboxes, remnants of dried coffee grounds left over from his own morning cup, and paint, are collaged together on his canvas.
Offman grew up in the lush farming town of Nyanza, Rwanda, and moved to Bologna as a preteen. It is this dual sense of belonging that constitutes the leitmotif to his abstract, fragmented compositions. In his search for a connection between these two lives, Offman found coffee—a commodity grown in Rwanda as a crop export, and drunk excessively in cafes across Italy and beyond. Offman will use the brown pigment in its varying shades to colour his surfaces which overlap and collide.
Offman’s artworks are all devoid of titles; a decision that suggests the idea of a map or tribal tapestry. Viewers are free to project their own orientation of the world onto these ambiguous patchworked plains.
Featured Work
Untitled
2021
Girls in Rome
2021
Untitled
Francis Offman
2021
56 x 78cm
Acrylic, ink collage on cotton paper
Girls in Rome
Francis Offman
2021
109 x 121cm
Acrylic, ink, coffee ground and Bolognese plaster on linen
