Miles McEnery Gallery has announced its representation of Detroit-based artist Conrad Egyir. Known for his vivid, graphic portraits of Black subjects, Egyir is joining the gallery on the heels of a 2023 solo presentation with San Francisco gallery Jessica Silverman and inclusion in “Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit,” a group exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Michigan that closed last month. The artist’s first show with Miles McEnery will be held in New York in September.
“I have long admired Conrad’s work and had the good fortune of meeting him through our shared friend, Beverly Fishman, last year. During our initial studio visit, I felt an immediate connection—it was not just his artistry, but his authenticity that truly resonated with me,” said Miles McEnery. “As our partnership became more tangible, I saw an opportunity to not only provide a platform for his masterful painting, but to illuminate him and his character in the process.”
Originally from Accra himself, Egyir seeks to represent the complex identities of his Afro-diasporic subjects, many of whom he knows personally. He paints these individuals at large scale, as if to elevate them to icon status, often incorporating personal artifacts and West African iconography.
“It is a pivotal and reverential moment to be arrayed within a platform of great artists on Miles McEnery’s roster. Especially when great artists like Beverly Fishman (my mentor), Bo Bartlett, and Enrique Martínez Celaya come to mind,” said Egyir. “There are historical, sociopolitical, paradisiacal, and a range of academic voices shared within the platform by the gallery and artists alike, that allows the context of my work to be situated in a beautiful way.”
Egyir received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He has been the subject of exhibitions at UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles; the Institute of Contemporary Art San José; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; among others.
