The artist Nengi Omuku has deeply influenced me from the beginning. Her works are painted on a traditional Nigerian fabric and deal with the themes of gender, race, cultural heritage, and identity differences. The faces of the characters in the picture are deliberately blurred, and the question of their identity has always surrounded me. Perhaps what Nengi Omuku wants to express is that identity cannot be defined, or perhaps it is defined by ourselves.
Technicolour Protest, 2020
Oil on Sanyan
115 x 195 cm 45 1/4 x 76 3/4 in
Nengi Omuku's work is inspired by body politics and the complexities surrounding identity and difference. On each trip, she considers how humans orient themselves with other living things in space. What matters most, in her view, is how the body needs to adapt to belong, and how it continually chooses and collects its identity mentally, physically, and emotionally. It's like I'm trying to find my old self by recalling photos, just to understand myself better. This is a process of constant innovation and collection.
"I wanted to think about how we treat the body and how that connects to the mental health crisis I witnessed in Nigeria. I painted the body as a way of depicting the mind; reflecting how unstable and fragile it is, as well as our mental space How it keeps changing.”（Processing an Impossible Year through art - harper’s bazaar.）
Flower power, 2020
Oil on Sanyan
90 x 110 cm 35 3/8 x 43 1/4 in
Room with a View, 2020
Oil on Sanyan
130 x 190 cm 51 1/8 x 74 3/4 in
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(No date a) Processing an impossible year through art - harper’s bazaar. Available at: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a35048154/nengi-omuku-art-essay/