kó is pleased to participate at Abu Dhabi Art 2024, featuring a dual artist presentation of Nigerian artists Nike Davies-Okundaye and Ozioma Onuzulike. This cross-generational dialogue features Okundaye’s groundbreaking embroidery, batik, and beadwork from the 1960s-1990s alongside Onuzulike’s contemporary ceramic tapestries.
Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye (b. 1951, Ogidi, Nigeria) is an internationally renowned batik and Adire textile artist. She is a central figure in the revival of traditional Nigerian arts with a career that has spanned more than five decades. She is best known for her exploration of Adire designs, a traditional Yoruba technique using indigo dyes on hand painted cloth. Traditional Adire designs embody cultural and historical meanings, combined into larger overall patterns that are recognized in Yoruba culture. She was particular drawn to its cultural significance as a “woman’s art,” passed down by successive generations of women. Nike was inspired by old methods of weaving and dying that were fading away. With no formal art education, Nike is a fifth-generation artist from a family of craftsmen. She became known as part of the Osogbo Art Movement of the 1960s, which arose in the newly independent Nigeria. With an interest in Yoruba spirituality, the Osogbo School focused on re-engaging traditional artistic practices alongside elements of modernism. Affectionally known as “Mama Nike”, she is a seminal figure of the Nigerian art community, with four art centres throughout the country.
Nike began weaving at the age of six, learning from her great-grandmother who was a weaver and Adire textile maker. Her first solo exhibition was held in 1968 at the Goethe Institute, Lagos. Since then, she has held over 102 solo art exhibitions and participated in 36 group art exhibitions. In 1974, Nike was one of ten African artists who toured and taught arts in various crafts institutions in the United States, taking her to all fifty states to conduct workshops and deliver lectures in schools and community centers. She has continued to serve as a guest lecturer in traditional textile techniques at universities worldwide, including Harvard University. In 2022, kó organised a solo presentation of her work at Frieze Masters Spotlight in London. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian Museum, National Museum of African Art; the Gallery of African Art, London; The British Library; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Museum of Natural History, New York; Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, Germany; and Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth.
Ozioma Onuzulike (b. 1972, Achi, Nigeria) creates large-scale ceramic resembling
tapestries, that are meticulously crafted from thousands of ceramic palm kernel beads and natural palm kernel shells. He explores the aesthetic and symbolic nature of clay-working, adopting a laborious process to achieve unique colors and textures in the clay, oxides, and glazes. Each ceramic undergoes bisque-firing and is dipped into ash glazes before being adorned with recycled glass. The pieces are woven with copper wire and allude to the West African textile traditions of Akwete, Aso Oke, and Kente. Inspired by the organic forms of palm shells, yams, and honeycombs, Onuzulike’s works serve as metaphors for the historical and sociological roots of turmoil in Africa. In the Palm Kernel Shell Bead series, Onuzulike considers the historical significance of the palm kernel shell as a symbol of currency in West Africa during the slave trade and its contemporary association with social status and wealth.
Onuzulike’s practice is closely associated with Nigeria’s prestigious Nsukka School in Southeastern Nigeria, renowned for its conceptual artistic processes employing natural and found materials. An influential center for art education in Nigeria, the Nsukka art department has been led by luminaries such as Uche Okeke, Chike Aniakor, Obiora Udechukwu, and El Anatsui, emphasizing the exploration of ideas, materials, and forms sourced from the environment. Onuzulike subsequently directed the art department at Nsukka, where he continues to teach and maintain his studio practice, currently serving as Director of the Institute of African Studies. Onuzulike graduated with First Class honors from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He 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, Hamilton College, Coker College, Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Lagos. In 2024, Onuzulike was listed as a finalist for the the seventh edition of Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in May 2024.