Kwesi Abbensetts (b. Guyana, 1976) is a New York based self-taught visual artist and hails from South America off the Corentyne coast of Guyana.

March 2020
Visions 1020
Wilmer Jennings Gallery
New York

February 2020
Gardenship: First Voyage
Cove Street Arts
Portland, Maine

September 2019
Umbilical - A Solo Show
Mocada Museum
New York

February 2019
MEDIUM(S)
La Box Gallery
Paris

November 2018
An Experience of Color: Landscapes and Legacies
Spanierman Modern Miami
Miami

November 2018
Race, Myth, Art, and Justice
Online Link to view exhibition - https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/cccadi
Caribbean Cultural Center Diaspora Institute
New York

October 2017
BIAS/CUT – A group show
The Curtain, London

August 2017
Metamorphosis: A solo exhibition of paintings.
7two7 Creative Space, New York

July 2017
Facial Profiling: A group show.
C24 Gallery, New York

July 2017
A Solo Show: Water Me
Brilliant Champions Gallery, New York

June 2017
Liminal Space
Online Link to view exhibition - https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/cccadi
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
New York

May 2017
Conception Art Fair
New York

January 2017
Metamorphosis: Come To Me
boom! Studios, New York



November 2016
Art Basel Miami: Prizm Art Fair
Miami



July 2016
UN|Fixed Homeland
Aljira Center for Contemporary Art Center, New Jersey


July 2016
Pictures: A solo exhibition
Tictail Gallery, New York


April 2016
Selfish
Brilliant Champions Gallery, New York


July 2014
SPIRIT- a self curated exhibit of photographic works  
Freecandy Creative Space, New York


March 2014
SELF TIMER
Brooklyn Fire Proof Stages, New York


March 2014
Metanoia: Practices of Exhaustion 
Grace Exhibition Space, New York


November 2012
Gordon Parks 100 – A Centennial and Remembrance
Free Candy Creative Space, New York



February 2012
Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re (de)fined Black Masculine Identity
Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Maryland



July 2011
Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re (de)fined Black Masculine Identity
Mocada Museum, New York



September 2011
Forever Forged, Forever Becoming 
Bargehouse, AACDD (African & African-Caribbean Design Diaspora) Festival
London, UK

October 2011
Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re (de)fined Black Masculine Identity
Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, New Jersey



June 2010
Homecoming: An Exhibition About Home and Homelessness.
Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York



November 2009    
Live To Change Something Through Art    
Skylight Gallery, Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, New York

Awards

2017 Festival Artist – Third Horizon Film Festival, Miami
2016 NYFA Photography Fellowship Award, New York
2016 Film Africa Artwork Competition 2016, London

Residencies

Jan - May 2020
Gardenship Residency, Kearny Point, Nj

September 2018
Wassaic Project Residency, New York




Collaborative Public Exhibit Project

2015 - “Griots in ‘The Stuy’: A Neighborhood as a Living Archive”
is an ephemeral public art exhibition of photographs in Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bedstuy), Brooklyn.
A Collaboration with artist and curator Rasu Jilani.
https://www.griotsinthestuy.com/about/

Press



2020 - MuseeMagazine

https://museemagazine.com/culture/2020/2/20/black-history-month-kwesi-abbensetts-1

2017 - Google Cultural Institute
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/partner/cccadi

2017 - In Conversation with Grace Aneiza Ali
Those Who Leave and Those Who Are Left
http://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/those-who-leave-and-those-who-are-left/

2017 - Hallucinatory Photographs by an Outsider Artist Defy Convention
https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/mbbgv8/hallucinatory-photographs-outsider-artist-kwesi-abbensetts

2017 - Conception Art Fair by Sinéad Day MacLeod
http://www.arcadeprojectzine.com/art/conception-art-fair-by-sinead-day-macleod/

2017 - Nailed Magazine - “Blood Memory”
http://www.nailedmagazine.com/photography/blood-memory-kwesi-abbensetts/


2016 - Hyperallergic - In Miami’s Little Haiti, A Fair Spotlights Artists of the African Diaspora
http://hyperallergic.com/342675/in-miamis-little-haiti-a-fair-spotlights-artists-of-the-african-diaspora/


2016 - Village Voice - “A Guyanese Art Show Explores Images of Migration and Home-Making”
http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/a-guyanese-art-show-explores-images-of-migration-and-home-making-8902457




2016 - Guyana Chronicle - Dominque Hunter, “Kwesi Abbensetts - Tending the garden of fragmented memories”
http://guyanachronicle.com/2016/11/12/kwesi-abbensetts-tending-the-garden-of-fragmented-memories



2016 - Gyuana Daily News - “Kwesi Abbensetts: The Photographer, The Artist, The Innovator”
http://www.guyanadailynews.com/articles/2016/11/15/kwesi-abbensetts-photographer-artist-innovator



2016 - Guyana Chronicle - “Migration, memory and the Guyana Experience”
https://guyanachronicle.com/2016/10/15/migration-memory-and-the-guyana-experience


2016 - Voices of NY -
How 13 Artists See Guyana
https://voicesofny.org/2016/09/how-thirteen-artists-see-guyana/



2016 - Fader Magazine - “Kwesi Abbensetts’s Quest For No More Boring Photos”
http://www.thefader.com/2016/05/04/kwesi-abbensetts-photo-interview

2016 - Fjords Review - Heather Zises “SELFISH”
http://www.fjordsreview.com/reviews/selfish-art.html


2015 - Bric TV - “Kwesi Abbensetts | Brooklyn Is Masquerading As The World”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULlh3JgMAQ


2014 - Arc Magazine - “Experiment As Practice”
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/03/experiment-as-practice-an-interview-with-photographer-kwesi-abbensetts-2/


2014 - Quiet Lunch Magazine - “A Kind of Masking”
http://quietlunch.com/a-kind-of-masking-kwesi-abbensetts/


Publications

2016 - Transition: The Magazine of Africa and The Diaspora #121 - Grace Aneiza Ali “UN|Fixed Homeland”
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University  -

http://graceali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/unfixed-homeland.-transition-magazine.-fall-2016.pdf