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Gallery
Prints • A collection of prints.
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What started out as a study in gesture-drawing the human head, with quick strokes in ink on tea stained paper to mimic colonial-time photographs, turned into a series featuring fantastical Igbo lolos (queens). My aim was to translate a sense of elongated power and grace in all 50 drawings.
In 2014, the Series was featured in the "Kindred" Exhibition (Curated by Kelly Walters MFA 15 GD + Tia Blassingame MFA 15 PR) in the RISD Museum's Gelman Student Exhibitions Gallery. Featured artists were invited to have a conversation about their work over lunch with renowned actor and activist Danny Glover, who was that year's invited MLK Day Keynote Speaker.
Research • Research practices
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These bronze Afro Picks are a nod to the complex bronze casting practices of the Igbo people of Nigeria during pre-colonial times (Igbo-Ukwu bronzes). The raised knotted net (cast as one flat piece and later curved) which provides grip, and the slim and slender form of the pick's teeth celebrate the complexities of their casting processes and our unique design language respectively.
Ncheta • A collection of prosed memories 3
The Udi paint the kilometres green,
green, all green, as time rolls by;
sunlight rolls also, peppered over their peaks.
Separated by glass and speed
we stare from under duvets, pinned behind seatbelts,
fingers charting when hills meet sky.
Dad calls them Enugu’s pride,
standing sentinel over our red city.
We think green is beautiful, so we roll windows down
peering out of wind-slapped eyes, littering laughter.
Wafts of wet sesame
that regularly haunt afternoon breezes
came to rest in the count of cotton shirt
perfuming his curve of neck
and mine, one pure dovetail.
Together, we whispered daylight down.
Like the breeze, he culled my wish hairs
and ran his thumb on soft of knuckle
till bronze peals split the silence
sifting boys from girls down loose gravel.
Numb silence rents the air.
Welcome, the dusking sky!
We stayed low to the ground
close to diving roots coming up to breathe,
unearthing shed wings and stray seeds
fossilised in caked clay.
We ran, we fell as the night did.
We tried to chase the crickets away,
dodging yellow aisles to open doors,
heels deep in moonlit sand.
We lived the month in water
a plastic blue beneath a passioned sun.
Little fingers raisined, skin cellophaned
as we kick and kick, kick an inch ever closer to Daddy,
taking in gulps of blue through gaping grins.
Only Mommy’s feet liked water; her body shone in sun.
Her toes a school of salon-orange clownfish
outsmarting young fishermen,
raising tides as white as the sky.
Slow was the day, red dust overtaking.
The sun hung low enough.
Our fingers stayed stretched,
growing towards the light like living things.
Tasting through your nose, grandma’s groves breathe
the slight acid of an orange peel into the back of your throat.
We found the love of the oil palm trees:
when cinderblock meets shell red flows down
fingers, dripping a waxy gold,
leafing the roof of your mouth in salty talc.
Histories • A collection of histories
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Pangea is a service that aims to foster cultural awareness and appreciation in America through food. It was founded during our Business Entrepreneurship studio. Co-founded with Indhu Solayappan.
Bupu - meaning remove or to export (stretched translation) in the Igbo language - is a fictitious fair trade organization that promotes the support of communities of farmers and food manufacturers in regions of Nigeria, Kenya, and Botswana and also serves as a tasty platform for global cultural exchange.
Collaborated with Sarah Crist & Zitong Zhou
In my Junior Spring, I got the opportunity to join a design research and innovation studio sponsored by Cessna Aviation (a division of Textron). Students from Industrial Design and Interior Architecture spent a semester developing innovative future concepts for their largest jet yet, joining their fleet sometime in 2019/2020.
We delivered our final presentation to several employees from Cessna and faculty from RISD in a final critique. In the Summer following, I was invited to Cessna's Headquarters in Kansas, on behalf of my team, to present our concepts and vision to the Board and the Design Team.
The Hack For Africa Sponsored Hack group (H4A), as part of Microsoft’s annual company hackathon, was created to leverage Microsoft’s various assets to bring our best ideas to bear and see how change can be affected in Education, Government and Policy, Healthcare, and much more as it relates to Africa.
As part of the 2018 H4A committee, I drove creative direction and developed branding and swag for our presence at the company hackathon event. I also led hack teams and was part of our group’s coordination and communication.
