Bio
Na Chainkua Reindorf (b. 1991, Ghana) is a multidisciplinary artist with a deep interest in world-building and mythmaking through the art of the masquerade. Upon imagining a fictional female masquerade society, Reindorf’s art practice is currently focused on creating artworks ranging from paintings and tapestries to sculptural installations which serve as referential visual lexicon for this imagined world.
Inspired by personal experiences and exploring West African folklore and religious cosmologies, Reindorf is interested in masquerading as an intervention through which guises and mutable personalities can be used to explore deviancy and non-conformity.
Na Chainkua received an MFA from Cornell University and has exhibited internationally in institutions across Africa, North America and Europe. In 2022, Reindorf was one of three artists representing Ghana at the Venice Biennale.
Statement
My current practice is centered on creating imagined worlds. I am particularly interested in exploring the art of masquerading as an intervention through which guises and mutable personalities can be used to explore deviancy and non-conformity. My deep interest in world-building and mythmaking comes from growing up with African oral traditions like folklores and religious cosmologies that form a significant part of Ghanaian culture. These experiences inspired me to create a fictional female secret masquerade society.
Within this fictional world which currently serves as my ongoing practice, seven distinct and unruly female avatars are imagined through different media, ranging from paintings and tapestries to costumes and large-scale installations. The work I make is intended to serve as a referential visual lexicon. This lexicon brings to life and slowly transforms from fiction to reality, the lives of these entities.
In fashioning these masquerade avatars, I hope that they can inspire and encourage alternate possibilities of being, unencumbered by social pressure. I also propose, with my current body of work, that these avatars which are essentially guises can exist as personalities which carry significance in their own right, with or without the presence of a physical body.
I am fascinated with how liberating the act of masquerading can be and how under a guise, aberrant behavior is tolerated and often accepted. My work capitalizes and expands on this idea.