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In his series entitled Divination Paintings, Jebila Okongwu engages with the multi-dimensional realities of traditional African art, a domain that includes legends, myths, ancestors, spirits, death and the cosmos.
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To create these works, the artist’s process involves randomly applying triangles of printed banana box cardboard onto canvas, resulting in a field of broken down graphic elements yet simultaneously revealing new visual structures. No longer in control of the image, the artist takes a role similar to that of the diviner, transcending his own ego by relaying coded information, and possible revelations, from a sentient cosmos.
JEBILA OKONGWU
Divination Painting No. 3, 2015
Mixed media collage on linen
55 1/8 x 44 1/2 in
140 x 113 cm -
Having developed a distinct aesthetic by working solely with collage for several years, Okongwu is now transforming and enlarging these works into paintings. The medium of oil paint imparts a surface sensuality that was not possible with collage, and the artist is now able to subtly alter the printed logos and texts of the original boxes, accentuating the personal and sociopolitical narratives which are also present in the works.
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Jebila Okongwu, "Divination Paintings No. 16 & 20", 2018
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Portrait of the artist | Photo by Joshua White
Jebila Okongwu critiques stereotypes of Africa and African identity and repurposes them as counterstrategies, drawing on African history, symbolism and spirituality.
One of his preferred materials is banana boxes; their tropicalized graphics articulate an ‘exotic’ provenance, much like the exoticization of African bodies from an ethnocentric perspective. When these boxes are shipped to the West from Africa, the Caribbean and South America, old routes of slavery are retraced, accentuating existing patterns of migration, trade and exploitation.
Born in London and then raised in Nigeria and Australia, Okongwu currently lives and works in Rome. He received a BA in Visual Art from Monash University, Melbourne, and a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art from the University of Melbourne. His work has been exhibited at prominent international institutions including the American Academy in Rome (2015), the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (2014), and the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2013). His work is featured in the recently released ‘100 Sculptors of Tomorrow’ published by Thames and Hudson, and ‘Graphite Interdisciplinary Arts Journal’ published by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Okongwu’s works are currently exhibited in the exhibition Friends and Friends of Friends, curated by Inga Kleinknecht at Schlossmuseum in Linz, Austria.
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