
Alexis Peskine’s signature works are large-scale mixed media portraits of the African diaspora, which are rendered by hammering gold leafed nails of different gauge, with pin-point accuracy, into wood stained with coffee and mud to create powerful composite images. He depicts figures that portray strength, perseverance and self-possession, with energy startlingly reminiscent of the Minkisi “power figures” of the Congo Basin, spiritually charged objects whose traditional function was to protect and ward off evil spirits.
In 2016, Institut Français, Dakar held Raft of Medusa: Le Retour de la Vague, a solo exhibition of Peskine’s works. In 2018, his works were included in the exhibition In Their Own Form at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Major museums and collectors including Peggy Cooper Cafritz, the Private Collection of Laurence Graff OBE, the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain; The Harvard Art Fogg Museum, Cambridge; Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus and Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago, amongst others have collected Peskine’s works.