The Armory Show 2016

From March 3 to 6, 2016, Omenka Gallery will present recent work by fast-rising contemporary artist Nengi Omuku at the 2016 edition of The Armory Show’s regional focus section titled: Focus: African Perspectives—Global Contemporaries.

 

Omuku’s work functions as a metaphor alluding to wider themes of difference, understanding and mutual belonging. Through colour, she explores the supposition that the human figure can be transformed based on the premise that things could not only look but also be otherwise. The release from the physical form has led her into a new territory, a moment-by-moment expression of beings that have been transformed from their present reality and reanimated through colour and marks.

 

It is her desire to convey portraits: presences floating through active spaces, presences that have the aspiration of becoming events in their own right. She also frequently explores the encounter – what happens when different forms meet. Another element of her work is the scape, in particular, the escape the bodies inhabit.

 

Nengi Omuku’s collection consists of stunning imagery; iridescent landscapes bathed with light from half-hidden globes, and populated by clouds and waterfalls; fantastical formations peopled with hybrid beings and floating organic bodies; imaginary vistas of intergalactic fields; and emerging cloud formations.

 

A close examination shows Omuku’s transiting clouds and waterfalls are representative of different physical states in the process of energy conversion. Consequently, we gain valuable insight into Omuku’s oeuvre, largely a series of self-portraits that document her strongly personal journey or escape across several energy levels as various expressions, bounded only by the law of energy conservation.

 

Selected solo and group exhibitions include A State of Mind at Omenka Gallery (2015) To Figure an Encounter, Open the Gate (2011) and Deep Cuts, Last Measures (2011) both at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in London. She lives and works in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.