Zak Ové (b. 1966, London) graduated in 1987 with a BA in Film and Fine Art from the St. Martin’s School of Art, London. Today he works in sculpture, film, painting and photography, often collaging the various elements through his use of found, cast and recovered materials. 

Ové’s interest is in reinterpreting lost culture and mythology using modern and antique materials, playing tribute to both spiritual and artistic African and Trinidadian identities, which have been given new meanings through the Trinidadian carnival – a mode of resistance - and the cross-cultural dispersion of ideas. 

He has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including Star Liner, Lawrie and Shabibi, Dubai, 2018; Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House (Courtyard), London, 2016; Arms Around The Child, No1 Mayfair London, 2014; Speaker, Vigo Gallery, London, 2013-14; Past Future, Fine Art Society, London, 2010; and Black & White Nudes, Carte Blanche Gallery, London, 2008.

In 2014 Ové became the first Caribbean artist to be commissioned by the British Museum, with his pair of seven-metre high Moko Jumbie sculptures exhibited in the Great Court as part of the Celebrating Africa exhibition. They are now permanently installed in their Africa gallery.

He has participated in other museum and institutional shows including Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA) and City Hall Plaza, San Francisco, 2018-2019; Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Tubman Museum of Art, Virginia, USA, 2018; Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Darkness, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, 2017; Twice Is Too Much, The Freies Museum, Berlin, 2010 and Blue Devils, Real Art Ways Museum, Connecticut, 2009. 

His works are in several collections including British Museum, London, UK; Newark Museum, New Jersey, USA; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, USA; Modern Forms, London, UK; David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK; Jameel Collection, Saudi Arabia; Facebook Corporate Collection, London, UK; 21 C Museum Hotels, Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Beth De Woody Collection, New York, USA; Walid Kamhawi Collection, Dubai, UAE; Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Brussels, Belgium; Levett Collection, London, UK and the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

The artist lives and works in London and Trinidad.