Koop Projects

A contemporary African art project based in Brighton, Sussex.

Our aim is to spark and foster conversations between African Artists and their creative counterparts here in Brighton and Sussex. Koop Projects was founded in 2022 in Kemptown, Brighton with the intention to start and foster conversations between artists based in Africa and their counterparts in Sussex.

15/08/2026

Mika Márffy's paintings are driven by intuition, gesture and transformation. Working in expressive abstraction, she creates richly layered compositions that balance spontaneity with careful attention to colour, texture and material.

Born in Zimbabwe and raised between Zimbabwe and Zambia, Márffy studied Fine Art, Art History, English Literature and Education at Rhodes University before beginning her career as a curator in Lusaka. Since 2020, she has focused exclusively on her own studio practice, developing a body of work that has gained increasing recognition across the region.

Her solo exhibition A Kind of Alchemy, curated by Sana Ginwalla ● Sana Ginwalla in 2022, marked an important milestone in her career. More recently, her work has been presented through Latitudes Online, including REVERB 23 | Abstract Resonances and the Curators Lab programme, introducing her paintings to a wider international audience.

At Koop Projects, we are drawn to artists whose work invites feeling before explanation. Mika Márffy's paintings remind us that abstraction can be both deeply personal and universally resonant, creating spaces where emotion, memory and material meet.

Shown here: Pages From a Sketchbook 10

Mika

14/08/2026

The Devil's In The Detail
Oil on Canvas
225cm x 150cm

John Kotzé's practice has always been grounded in close observation. For decades, he has been recognised for meticulously painted, large-scale realist works that transform everyday subjects into quietly compelling studies of pattern, light and form. Whether depicting stacked containers, corrugated iron, construction sites or ordinary objects, his paintings invite us to look again at the familiar.

Alongside these monumental works, Kotzé has developed a more intimate body of paintings on the pages of century-old Webster's dictionaries. Playful, inventive and often quietly humorous, these small works breathe new life into found paper, allowing image and language to coexist in unexpected ways.

More recently, his practice has expanded once again through the exploration of collage. While his materials have evolved, the curiosity that underpins his work remains unchanged: an enduring fascination with the overlooked, the everyday, and the visual possibilities hidden within them.

At Koop Projects, we value artists whose careers demonstrate both technical mastery and a willingness to experiment. John Kotzé's work is a testament to the idea that reinvention can emerge from decades of careful looking.

27/06/2026

Untitled
Percy Manyonga
Paper, wood, glue, acrylic paint

Percy Manyonga was born in Goromonzi, Zimbabwe. He spent three years studying at the National Gallery BAT Workshop School (now the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design).

Manyonga draws inspiration from his rural upbringing as a cattle herder and time spent in rural and urban environments - depicting introspective and layered internal landscapes. In his practice Percy proposes a reimagining of line, structure, material and medium. His most recent solo exhibition, "Becoming Myself" was at Loft 3 Gallery Loft 3 Gallery Space in Harare, where he exhibited an entirely new body of work experimenting with sewing thread and string as his medium.

He has exhibited extensively locally and abroad in countries such as Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom. His work resides in private collections in Spain, Canada, Australia, Austria, UK.

Exhibitions include Zimbabwe Meets Italy at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare (Zimbabwe: 2018); Eye Report at Village Unhu, Harare (Zimbabwe 2016); and the Zimbabwe Heritage Annual Exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, where he was awarded the Cyril Rogers Award of Distinction for Young Artist of Promise (Zimbabwe: 2000).
Percy Manyonga’s works are featured in the Zeitz MOCAA exhibition, Five Bhobh – Painting at the End of an Era (2018 – 2019).

14/06/2026

Thank you Vic Falls for a brilliant weekend - we had a wonderful time meeting so many people. Very thankful for the response from so many people to the exhibition and hope to meet many more over the next few weeks.

12/06/2026

HUMAN NATURE / NATURAL HISTORIES
A site specific exhibition in Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is a place where nature reminds us of its power. Here, landscapes have been shaped over millions of years, while human stories continue to unfold alongside them.

Human Nature / Natural Histories brings together artists from Zimbabwe, across Africa, and beyond to explore the many ways people and nature influence one another. Through painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media, the exhibition considers our relationship with landscape,
memory, materials, myth, technology and change.

Some works look closely at the natural world. Others reflect on the marks we leave behind, the stories we tell, and the ways we imagine our future. Together, they invite us to consider how we shape the world around us - and how it shapes us in return.

With this evolving exhibition, KOOP Projects hopes to contribute to a growing cultural conversation in Victoria Falls, celebrating not only the extraordinary landscape that surrounds us, but also the creativity, ideas, and people that give this place its character.

Whether you live in Victoria Falls or are visiting from elsewhere, this exhibition is an invitation to pause, look closely, and make your own connections. The questions it raises are universal: How do we belong to a place? What do we inherit? What do we leave behind?

Artists include:

John Kotze
Percy Manyonga
Tshepiso Moropa
Peter Mammes
Linda Burris-Webster
Patrick Tagoe-Turkson
Baudouin Mouanda
Mika Marffy
Raphael Ndube
Denni Chiwemba
David Chiwemba
Hawu

Iterations until November

14/05/2026

Congratulations to Senzeni Marasela on her inclusion at the Arsenale for In Minor Keys at the 2026 Venice Biennale with this monumental presentation

These pieces are a chapter from an epic narrative that tells the story of the artist's muse, Theodorah.

Through her vast body of work Senzeni offers a deep, immersive, reflection on memory and identity through the very specific history and geography of Johannesburg's mining industry and the indelible marks it has left on the city's landscapes and people.

📸

12/05/2026

It’s a pleasure to see work by Georgina Maxim included at the 61st Venice Biennale as part of In Minor Keys at the Arsenale.

The work holds themes of loss, memory, and transformation through the deconstruction and reconstruction of clothing, books, text and textiles.

Congratulations

13/07/2025

Baudouin Mouanda has been nominated for the Prix Pictet 2025 award alongside eleven other outstanding artists. Congratulations and to everyone on the shortlist.

The is the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. It was founded in 2008 by the Pictet Group with the goal of harnessing the power of photography to draw global attention to the critical issue of sustainability.

This year's theme is "Storm" and Baudouin is recognised for his spectacular series Ciel de Saison in which he created tableaux vivants in the waterlogged basement of an abandoned building in Brazzaville, after devastating floods swept through the city. Please find out more about the series in stories and links in bio.

I lose myself for hours when I wander through these photographs, discovering new things each time I look at them: the discretely placed, self-referential film cartridge I hadn't noticed before, a glimmer of surreal dark humour here, a nod to Holbein's Ambassadors there.. Scroll to see some of them.

But this monumental image is the one I return to most often. A heartstopping moment of quiet, after the storm. I still haven't found all of its hidden angles and I truly don't know how he made it... Whether it was a single miraculous fraction of a second that allowed him to capture all those triangular folds in the cloth, the t-shirts, the limbs... Or if it took hours and hours of trial and error to perfect the placement.

Thank you, Baudouin, for your outstanding work and for the trust you placed in us to exhibit it.

The winner of the prize will be announced at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.

parker__

04/07/2024

Over the last few weeks some unexpectedly sudden and significant personal events have meant that many plans and announcements had to be put on hold.

So we are very very late to tell you that an absolutely beautiful exhibition has been happening in the gallery and is on view until Sunday.

The wonderful South African born, Kemptown based artist Susan Bamford, has been showcasing a collection of exquisite expressions of the sea.

The title of the exhibition - Belonging - could not be more appropriate for this moment. As an immigrant, it is hard to feel that one truly belongs in their adopted country and Susan has often felt a yearning for the dramatic landacapes of South Africa with its crashing oceans, huge skies and vast plains of wildflowers. In the winter of 2024, she began an intense period of painting the landscape on her East Sussex doorstep, exploring themes of loss, longing and acceptance through her work.

The Artist works with mixed media, primarily oil and cold wax to which she applies moulding paste which she sculpts and scrapes to achieve a highly textured effect. Seldom using brushes, she employs spatulas, scrapers and various other tools, leaving traces and marks in the work and imbuing each piece with a powerful energy.

Belonging closes on Sunday 7 July

Image: Beautiful Monster.

28/05/2024

A very special opening this Friday, 31 May: Tales the Land Tells is an exhibition that focuses on the passage of time and the stories we can tell using the land around us. Featuring a delicate collection of work from, Esme Papa - The Seaweed Experiments, Zosia Szymanowska - Place & Passing and Joe Charrington - 'Lay Like The Folds of A Bright Girdle Furled’.

As part of our commitment to supporting our local art community, we have regularly gifted the gallery space in Kemptown to young artists and curators in Brighton and Sussex to help them realise their projects in a commercial setting. We could not be more delighted to have these three wonderful young photographers making a guest appearance with us.

We hope you'll come along to the opening on Friday between 5pm and 8pm.

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Address

93 St George's Road
Brighton And Hove
BN21EE

Telephone

+447483163396

Website

https://www.koopprojects.com/

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