Lot 32

El Sadig Agena (Sudanese, born 1963)
Migration to Another Place, 2020
Signed ’2020 ‘signature’’ (lower right)
Acrylic on canvas
119 x 139.2 cm
Ksh 375,000 – 450,000
(US$) 3,300 – 4,000
Provenance: direct from the artist

Bought in

After obtaining his BA in Textile Design and Printing at the Sudan University of Science and Technology in 1991, and a Diploma in Printmaking in Egypt, El Sadig Agena moved to Saudi Arabia in 1997, where his studio in Riyadh became the nucleus for the community of Sudanese artists working there. During this time, he completed numerous commissions and corporate murals, and now has works in various institutional collections in Saudi Arabia.

In 2003, Agena returned to Sudan where he now works as a full-time artist from his private studio in Khartoum. He has exhibited extensively in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Sudan, including a solo exhibition in 2016 at the Dama Art Gallery, Jeddah, and has work in numerous international private collections.

In this haunting painting, titled Migration to Another Place, figures emerge precariously from the surface, from the paint, the dust or fog, and the crowd. Conjured with delicacy and care is a group, possibly a family, who appear to be moving in the opposite direction to the stream of people walking past them into the distance.