LEADING PAINTER EL LOKO DIES
by NEWS
We regret to announce the death of leading contemporary painter, EL Loko who suddenly passed away. EL Loko was born in 1950 in Pedakonji, Togo. From 1965 to 1968, he trained as a textile designer before studying Sculpture, Painting and Graphic Art under Joseph Beuys at the Governmental Ghana Art Academy of Düsseldorf from 1971 to 1979.
EL Loko was well-known for the use of symbols as he strove to develop a unique language through the use of his own personal pictorial alphabet. Each alphabet embraces ornamental colour blends, figurations, primeval symbols and cryptic signs to constitute a homogenous whole. EL Loko’s Cosmic Letters, the alphabet from which he composes his large-format works, are a collection of all the earthly and transcendental elements of his cosmos. A fine example presented here is his Cosmic Alphabet 47, a result of an intensive preoccupation with the traditions of his native Togo, Christianity, and his own inventiveness. He sort to achieve harmony, a global overview and a global identity. His World Faces are allegories which make no distinctions between religion, race, sex, and identity.
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- KÖPOLL 24, mixed media on nettle, 55 x 55 cm, 2012
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- KÖPOLL 23, mixed media on nettle, 56 x 52 cm, 2012
In 1990, he founded the artists association, Weber-Vögel with Bodo Berheide and Bernhard Lüthi in Wuppertal. EL Loko has participated in several major international shows including Black Germany (2012) and Kunstverein Hohenaschau (2013).
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