Artist Radar – Njideka Akunyili Crosby
So sehr ich das Internet von Zeit zu Zeit verfluche, so dankbar bin ich gleichzeitig auch, dass es diesen Teufel gibt :). Ohne den Internetteufel würde es doch wohl etwas länger dauern soviel wundervolle Kunst auf einmal zu entdecken … Deswegen möchte euch mal wieder eine wundervolle nigerianische Künstlerin namens Njideka Akunyili Crosby “vorstellen”.
Collagen + Malerei + Kultur + Liebe stehen hier im Einklang. Und ich bin verliebt! Ja, genau… und zwar in ihre Werke!
Infos darüber, welche Rolle ihr hellhäutiger Mann in dem Ausdruck ihrer Kunst spielt und wie sie Nigeria in ihre Kunst integriert, findet ihr nach einigen ihrer wundervollen Arbeiten.
Informed by art historical and literary sources, Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s complex, multi-layered works reflect contemporary transcultural identity. Combining drawing, painting and collage on paper, Akunyili Crosby’s large-scale figurative compositions are drawn from the artist’s memories and experiences. She uses the visual language and inherited traditions of classical academic western painting, particularly the portrait and still life. Akunyili Crosby’s characters and scenes, however, occupy the liminal, in-between zone that post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha refers to as ‘the third space’, a point of overlap, conflation and mixing of cultural influences specific to diaspora communities.
Akunyili Crosby was born in Nigeria, where she lived until the age of sixteen. In 1999 she moved to the United States, where she has remained since that time. Her cultural identity combines strong attachments to the country of her birth and to her adopted home, a hybrid identity that is reflected in her work. The artist populates her work with images of family and friends, in scenarios with details derived from everyday domestic experiences in Nigeria and America. These include recollections from the formative years of her upbringing, as well as more recent relationships and experiences. Her work often features an element of self-portrait, as in a series of intimate scenes of the artist with her husband made in the early years of their marriage. / via victoria-miro.com
My art addresses my internal tension between my deep love for Nigeria, my country of birth, and my strong appreciation for Western culture, which has profoundly influenced both my life and my art. I use my art as a way to negotiate my seemingly contradictory loyalties to both my cherished Nigerian culture that is currently eroding and to my white American husband. Most of the Nigerian traditions I experienced growing up are quickly disappearing due to the permeation of Western culture and the ensuing opinion that being ”too Nigerian” is uncool. I feel dismayed by Nigerians’ unquestioningly valuing anything Western as superior however, my awareness of this problem does not exempt me from it – indeed, I question whether this mentality played a part in my falling in love with my husband. My art serves as a vehicle through which I explore my conflicted allegiance to two separate cultures. / via theculture.forharriet.com
Und sogar ein kurzes Interview habe ich noch für euch gefunden:
images via smithsonianmag.com / theculture.forharriet.com