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Born in 1944 in Anyako, Ghana; Lives and works in Nsukka, Nigeria.

An internationally renowned artist, El Anatsui received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial in 2015, a high honor for this African artist who first presented at the biennial in 1990. While remaining loyal to his roots, El Anatsui has traveled the world and gained international attention for his work in recycled materials. These emblematic bronze-toned tapestries are created using flattened bottle caps, linked by copper threads in a complex and meticulous assembly which blends tapestry, painting, and sculpture. Often monumental in size (as much as sixteen meters tall and fifty meters long for the façade of the Royal Academy in London in 2013), his complex, shimmering sculptures hide their material origins, while also gaining a metaphorical charge from their cultural and ecological implications.