NIGERIA’s leading ceramic artist, Ozioma Onuzulike, is on call from April 13 through 16th at the Expo Chicago, USA, courtesy Ko Gallery.
The show also marks the debut of the Lagos based Ko Gallery at the international exposition of contemporary and modern art, in Chicago, Illinois, popularly known as Expo Chicago.
Showcasing seven new ceramic artworks by Ozioma Onuzulike, who is also an art historian and teacher, the works, largely experimental in content, concept and form, will be mounted in the Booth 374 of the Exposure section at the Navy Pier, Festival Hall, 600 E Grand Ave, Chicago, Illinois; and will be available for viewing as follows:
*VIP Preview:* April 13, 12-9 PM
Opening Night: April 13, 6-9 PM
* By Invitation
*Public Days:*
Friday, April 14, 11 AM-7 PM
Saturday, April 15, 11 AM-7 PM
Sunday, April 16, 11 AM-6 PM
A release from Ko Gallery reads in parts:
OZIOMA Onuzulike (b. 1972, Achi, Enugu State, Nigeria) creates large-scale ceramic installations that hang like tapestries, formed from thousands of ceramic palm kernel beads, terracotta, copper rings, and natural shells. He explores the aesthetic, symbolic and metaphorical nature of the clay working process – pounding, crushing, hammering, wedging, grinding, cutting, pinching, punching, perforating, burning, and firing. His recent work is inspired by yam tubers, palm kernel shells and honeycombs which he mass-produces in terracotta and weaves together in often laborious processes. He configures a multiplicity of the individual units in ways that call attention to pressing socio-political and environmental issues, such as reckless politics, bad governance, imperialism, terrorism and climate change. Adopting the laborious process of firing the materials through multiple kilns, each firing creates unique colors and textures in transforming the clay, oxides, glazes and recycled glass.
Hailing from Nigeria’s prestigious Nsukka School in Southeastern Nigeria, his work has become synonymous with Nsukka’s experimental art department which he has led, known for its conceptual and material processes. An important center for art education in Nigeria, the art department at Nsukka has been spearheaded by luminaries such as Nigerian modernists Uche Okeke and Chike Aniakor in the early 1970s, and has subsequently been led by pioneering artists including Obiora Udechukwu and El Anatsui, stressing the exploration of ideas, materials and forms sourced from the environment.
Ozioma Onuzulike graduated First Class from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he now serves as Director of the Institute of African Studies. His solo exhibition, _Seed Yams of Our Land_, was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019, along with a presentation of his poetry collection of the same title also published by the CCA. kó presented Onuzulike’s exhibition, _The Way We Are,_ in 2021. His works were included in _[Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times_ at the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK. His exhibition, _Strings the Length of Our Palm’s Seal,_ was held at Chertlüdde, Berlin, in 2022. His work has been included in recent presentations at The Armory Show, 1-54 London, Artgenève and Zonamaco. Onuzulike is a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Centre, Umbertide, Perugia, Italy, where he undertook a residency under the UNESCO-ASCHBERG Bursary for Artists, and an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, USA. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Archeology, University of Cambridge, Princeton University Art Museum, Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Lagos.
*For a view of a wide range of Ozioma Onuzulike’s works, follow him on Instagram @ozioma.onuzulike
