Josie KO
Mekle Lippis
05/04/25 - 25/05/25
This exhibition ‘Mekle Lippis’ shows selective works of Josie KO’s recent works which all have shared from her recent interest in looking into archival text and history and explore hidden or forgotten histories.
The title of the exhibition ‘Mekle Lippis’ refers to Scottish poet William Dunbar’s poem ‘Of Ane Black Moir’ which repeats the line ‘My Ladye with the Mekle Lippis’ at the end of each stanza.
Significantly, this poem in the 16th century, captures one of the first documentations of the Black female presence in Scotland. Here, Dunbar describes African women performing for the King’s court in Edinburgh and gives insight to the spectacle of the Black female body in Scotland.
Full of satire, mockery and racist observations, Prof. Bernadette Andrea argues that this poem ‘anticipates the racism of subsequent discourses of the Empire’. Using this poem as a reference, Josie aims to explore the representation of the Black female presence in white dominated spaces and consider how the vulgar descriptions of the Black women, stereotypes and racist remarks have persisted today. Furthermore, in the works on show, Josie takes and subvert these stereotypes to empower and signify the Black female identity.
Each work in this show was inspired by Black ceramists such as Augusta Savage and ceramics in the non-western canon of art history, specifically at Nigerian potter Ladi Kwali to create contemporary figurative sculptures of the Black body. In this exhibition, Josie’s Black ceramic ladies, will be at the centre of attention, occupying the space and unavoidably eye-catching (countering the erasure of Black bodies in art history).
Fir Gorma- Silly Lady’, 2024 -ROOM ONE
‘Fir gorma - silly Lady’ is one of 4 ceramics sculptures in Josie KO’s larger body of work titled Fir Gorma. This body of work first was exhibited at Glasgow International 2024 as a collaborative exhibition with artist Kialy Tihngang. In this body of work, Josie looked into her research into Black British history and specifically the Old Irish term ‘fir gorma’ translates as ‘blue men’.
References to fir gorma in ancient Irish chronicles are thought by historians and folklorists to refer to North African people enslaved by Vikings in the 9th century and brought to Ireland and the Scottish Hebrides. In key texts such as Peter Fryer’s Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain and Donald Mackenzie’s Scottish Folk Lore and Folk Life: Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition, writers have speculated on these figures’ presence on the islands and the mythologies connected to them.
This encounter with records dating the presence of Black people to precolonial 9th century Scotland was significant, inspiring Josie to produce a body of work which speculatively contextualises archival material through figurative sculpture. Using the records as sites for daydreaming and imagination, Josie expands on this neglected piece of Black Scottish history and produces a monument dedicated to her discovery.
Special thank yous to:
● Sam wood - textile designer and artists for helping me design and create the skirt my ‘silly lady’ is wearing allowing me to bring some of the magic of the Glasgow International ‘big Lady’ down to Margate
● Beulah Ezeugo for writing a response to my work Fir Gorma (find text in exhibition)
● Glasgow International - for selecting me as part of the open call and funding the creation of Fir Gorma for the 2024 iteration of the festival. As an emerging artist, Glasgow International was an incredible platform to exhibit my work alongside a group of amazing artists and creatives.
● Glasgow Ceramic Studios, Scottish Sculpture workshop, Hospitalfield and Greywolf studios for being the workshops and studios that enabled me to create my Fir Gorma series.
Rainbows are Portals into Utopian Belongings, 2024 - ROOM TWO
Rainbows are Portals into Utopian Belongings is a piece Josie made for her first solo at Govan Project Space, Glasgow. In this work, Josie continues her research and thinking about Sande masks and society, monuments and archival history into forgotten Black British histories.
Significantly, this sculpture, which is surrounded in a room of multiple different colours, explores Josie’s interest in world building and dreaming as she transforms the gallery into a new imaginative space, which evokes a sense of nostalgia and playfulness.
Special thank yous to:
● Govan Project Space, run by Matt and Alex. Thank you for inviting me to exhibit in your
space, helping me with funding applications, being ears for me to bounce of ideas,
driving around Glasgow collecting things and painting the gallery 5 different colours!
● Thank you Rosa Gally for creating the sequin dress for my ceramic lady to wear
● JJ Fadaka for writing a poem in response to ‘Rainbows Are portals into Utopia
Belongings (find in exhibition)
● Thank you to Henry Moore Foundation, Hope Scott Trust, Creative Scotland and
especially We Are Here Scotland for funding this initial showing and creation of the
exhibition at Govan Project Space
Lady in Red, 2025, - FINAL ROOM
Lady in red is a development of an older body of work that Josie made as part of Bad Art Collective group show Touch Me Baby, 2022. Since then, the work has been abandoned in Josie’s studio and only now be shown again in its new context. Like in its first showing, the red gloved dress which fills up the room, is bold and eye-catching, demanding to be seen.
Referencing William Dunbar’s poem ‘Of Ane Black Moir’, Josie captures the Black figure as a spectacle, something to be looked at, but allows her figure to deny the directness of the gaze, standing proudly and strongly with self worth of her own beauty and autonomy. Throughout this work we see Josie’s distinct instinctive nature to working, working with ceramics and textiles, to create a monumental, eye-catching figure which speaks to the larger history of the representation of Black representation in the canon of art history.
Special thank yous to:
● Bad Art Collective for awarding me my first ever funding in 2020 which went towards
making this dress in the 2022 show Touch me Baby
● Glasgow Ceramic Studio, specifically Ruth Green, for helping me with my ceramic
Josie KO is an emerging Glasgow based artist who graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2021. Since then, she’s been a committee member at Transmission Gallery and been Event’s Coordinator at Glasgow School of Art’s Student’s Association. Josie has since exhibited in Dundee, London, Switzerland and in Glasgow International 2024
Purposely working with non-traditional methods and mediums (such as paper mâché, glitter and found objects), Josie KO uses these materials’ relegated status in the art world and mixed media techniques to present a new reimagined depiction of the Black female body. Constructing the women with irregular limbs and glittery bodies glorifies the handmade and drifts from the norms of Western art ideals. The scale of her works makes them unavoidably noticeable, counteracting the erasure of Black women in art history and
Black female artists. There is a strong sense of the artist’s self in the work, most noticeable with her casted or sculpted face, but also through the tactility of the forms, which document the signs of the artists hands and movement. Employing radical imagination, dreaming and speculation that amplifies and deepens the limitations of the archive, Josie aims to produce a richer picture of Black existence in Britain, granting a greater perspective on marginalized voices. The result are installations which show imagined world buildings and utopian longings.