Spells for Beginners 1994/2000
Living-room environment, Betacam SP Pal Video Tape,
5 minutes with audio, transferred onto DVD
Courtesy the artist

Born: Nigeria, 1963

Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé is one of several British artists of Nigerian origin or descent to have emerged in the 1990s. Shown for the first time, Spells for Beginners features Bamgboyé and Scottish artist Anne Rome Elliot, with whom he had a long relationship. The couple appear separately in a sequence of shots, accompanied by their painful, unscripted conversation, which attempts some understanding of why their relationship ended. They hint at the private and the public forces - Scotland's predominantly white culture, their interaction as artists - that have complicated their relationship. The film itself plays on the widespread objectification of the black male body in the West.

The closing shot of a book about alchemy entitled Spells for Beginners might suggest the artist's belief in the power of art as a tool for imagining the world differently.

More information on the artist is available at http://www.bamgboye.f9.co.uk.