Victor Ekpuk (born 1964) is a Nigerian-born artist based in Washington, DC. Ekpuk came to prominence through his paintings and drawings, which reflect indigenous African philosophies of the Nsibidi and Uli art forms. [1]
Victor Ekpuk (born 1964) is a Nigerian-born artist based in Washington, DC. Ekpuk came to prominence through his paintings and drawings, which reflect indigenous African philosophies of the Nsibidi and Uli art forms. [1]
Ekpuk's work frequently explores the human condition of identity in society. [2] It draws upon a wider spectrum of meaning that is rooted in African and global contemporary art discourses. [3] [4] In 1989 Victor received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree (BFA), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nigeria, where he first explored the aesthetic philosophies of Nsibidi. [5] Its economy of lines and encoded meanings led him to further explore drawing as writing, and to the invention of Ekpuk's own Glyphs. In a 2017 issue of Diaspora Quarterly, Visual Collaborative cited Ekpuk's work on the heritage of Africa art. [6] In 1991, Ekpuk joined the Daily Times Nigeria (DTN), a government-controlled media outlet. [7] Ekpuk joined DTN as an illustrator between June 17, 1991, and October 29, 1997, at the Daily Times of Nigeria, and was responsible for developing visual material for columns in the Daily Times and its related publications. [7] Despite the tense political climate, arising from authoritarian military rule in Nigeria, Ekpuk delivered several thought-provoking satirical designs that traversed the political terrain in the country. His unique style consisted of political cartooning and his own unique Nsibidi inspired illustration. [7] A notable example of illustrations from Ekpuk's time with DTN are from The New Agenda: Behind Abacha’s Game-Plan, an article covering the bloodless coup d'état that removed Ibrahim Babangida from his seat as military head of state. [7]
His artworks are in private and public collections, such as Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, [8] Newark Museum, The World Bank, University of Maryland University College, Hood Museum, United States Art in Embassies Art Collection and the Fidelity Investment Art Collection.
Ekpuk's work have been featured at venues including: Krannert Art Museum, [9] Champaign, Illinois; The Fowler Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Art and Design (MAD), New York City; Newark Museum, New Jersey; The World Bank, Washington DC; Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City; Johannesburg Biennial, South Africa.
Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. She is often associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
Obiora Udechukwu is a Nigerian painter and poet.
Chike C. Aniakor is a Nigerian artist, art historian, author, and poet whose work addresses philosophical, political, and religious themes relating to Igbo society and the Nigerian Civil War. His artworks are held in major metropolitan museums including the Smithsonian Institution, Nigerian National Gallery of Art, and the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Frankfurt. Aniakor is a prolific writer and has authored over 75 books and articles.
Christopher Uchefuna Okeke, also known as Uche Okeke, was an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was an art and aesthetic theorist, seminal to Nigerian modernism.
The Krannert Art Museum (KAM) is a fine art museum located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. It has 48,000 square feet (4,500 m2) of space devoted to all periods of art, dating from ancient Egypt to contemporary photography. The museum's collection of more than 11,000 objects can be accessed online and includes specializations in 20th-century art, Asian art, and pre-Columbian art, particularly works from the Andes.
Nnenna Okore is an Australian-born Nigerian artist who lives and works in Chicago at North Park University, Chicago. Her largely abstract sculptural forms are inspired by richly textured forms and colours within the natural environment. Okore's work frequently uses flotsam or discarded objects to create intricate sculptures and installations through repetitive and labor-intensive processes. She learnt some of her intricate methods, including weaving, sewing, rolling, twisting and dyeing, by watching local Nigerians perform daily domestic tasks. In her more recent works, Okore uses plant-based materials to create large bioplastic art forms and installations. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums within and outside of the United States. She has won several international awards, including a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2012. and the Australian Creative Victoria Award in 2021.
Samson Kambalu is a Malawi-born artist, academic and author who trained as a fine artist and ethnomusicologist at the University of Malawi's Chancellor College. He is a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
George Nene (1959–2005) was one of Zimbabwe's best known artists. In 1988 his contributions to the nation were memorialized on a Zimbabwean stamp.
Marcia Kure is a Nigerian visual artist known primarily for her mixed media paintings and drawings which engage with postcolonial existentialist conditions and identities.
Mustafa Maluka is an artist known for his portraits.
Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching non-category [sic]" are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression?
Diane Victor, is a South African artist and print maker, known for her satirical and social commentary of contemporary South African politics.
Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya is a Nigerian printmaker, painter and sculptor. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Malmö Konsthall in Malmö, Sweden. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos, has an exhibit of colourful abstract canvases by Onobrakpeya and his works can be found at the Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art, although no exhibitions were showing as of October 2017.
Michael Tsegaye is an Ethiopian artist and photographer. Much of his work presents a glimpse of life in contemporary Ethiopia, although an extended catalogue of his images come from his travels abroad.
Allan deSouza is a transmedia artist, photographer, art writer, and professor. Their work deals with issues of migration, overlapping histories, and the poetics of relocation. They work in the San Francisco Bay Area, and are Full Professor in the Department of Art Practice at the University of California, Berkeley.
Martha Jackson Jarvis is an American artist known for her mixed-media installations that explore aspects of African, African American, and Native American spirituality, ecological concerns, and the role of women in preserving indigenous cultures. Her installations are composed using a variety of natural materials including terracotta, sand, copper, recycled stone, glass, wood, and coal. Her sculptures and installations are often site-specific, designed to interact with their surroundings and create a sense of place. Her works often focus on the history and culture of African Americans in the southern United States. In her exhibition at the Corcoran, Jarvis featured over 100 big collard green leaves, numerous carp, and a live Potomac catfish.
Joyce J. Scott is an African-American artist, sculptor, quilter, performance artist, installation artist, print-maker, lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019, Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form, off-loom beadweaving techniques, similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads, and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass, quilting and leather. In 2018, she was hailed for working in new medium — a mixture of soil, clay, straw, and cement — for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures, including Native American and African traditions, Mexican, Czech, and Russian beadwork, illustration and comic books, and pop culture.
Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu was a Japanese-American painter who was also proficient in Japanese style sumi and lithography.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian visual artist, writer, and photographer known for his expansive works that engage with multinational cultural heritage and postcolonial socioeconomics of contemporary black lives. In 2017, he was selected to represent Nigeria at the Venice Biennale, the first time Nigeria would be represented in the event. His work has been described as representing "a symbol of resistance" to colonialism.
Flora C. Mace is an American glass artist, sculptor, and educator. She was the first woman to teach at Pilchuck Glass School. Since the 1970s, her artistic partner has been Joey Kirkpatrick and their work is co-signed. Mace has won numerous awards including honorary fellow by the American Craft Council (2005).
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
