Victoria-Idongesit Udondian Nigeria, b. 1982
Overview
Victoria-Idongesit Udondian (b. 1982, Nigeria) works across textiles, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, video, and, most recently, ceramics. Her practice is driven by an interest in textiles and the ways design shapes identity, drawing on the histories and tacit meanings embedded in everyday materials. Trained in tailoring, painting, sculpture, and new genres, she creates large-scale, interdisciplinary projects with textiles at their core, often informed by her experiences growing up in Nigeria. Udondian’s work interrogates the postcolonial condition within an increasingly globalized world, examining the intersections of migration, labour, and global trade.
Biography
Udondian (b. 1982, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria) received her B.A. in Fine Arts (Painting) from the University of Uyo, Nigeria, in 2004, and her MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University, New York, in 2016. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, She is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Art at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York.
Udondian was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2018. She has participated in numerous residencies, including Fountainhead (Miami, 2023), Instituto Sacatar (Bahia, Brazil), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), Fine Arts Work
Center (Provincetown), Villa Strauli (Winterthur, Switzerland), Fondazione di Venezia (Italy), and Bag Factory Studios (Johannesburg).
Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Fischer Landau Center for the Arts (New York), the Bronx Museum, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the National Museum (Lagos), the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), the South London Gallery, and Villa Strauli Art Centre (Switzerland). Recent solo exhibitions include How Can I Be Nobody at Smack Mellon, New York (2022), and Adape 1 at The Arts Collaboratory, University at Buffalo (2021). Recent group exhibitions include the British Textile Biennial (Blackburn, UK, 2023), Fragmented World/Coherent Lives at Ten North Group Gallery (Miami, 2023), and Hacer Noche: Promised Land Biennial at Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Mexico, 2022).Her work is held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Nigeria), the West Collection (Philadelphia), and the Fondazione di Venezia (Italy).
Udondian was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2018. She has participated in numerous residencies, including Fountainhead (Miami, 2023), Instituto Sacatar (Bahia, Brazil), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), Fine Arts Work
Center (Provincetown), Villa Strauli (Winterthur, Switzerland), Fondazione di Venezia (Italy), and Bag Factory Studios (Johannesburg).
Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Fischer Landau Center for the Arts (New York), the Bronx Museum, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the National Museum (Lagos), the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), the South London Gallery, and Villa Strauli Art Centre (Switzerland). Recent solo exhibitions include How Can I Be Nobody at Smack Mellon, New York (2022), and Adape 1 at The Arts Collaboratory, University at Buffalo (2021). Recent group exhibitions include the British Textile Biennial (Blackburn, UK, 2023), Fragmented World/Coherent Lives at Ten North Group Gallery (Miami, 2023), and Hacer Noche: Promised Land Biennial at Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Mexico, 2022).Her work is held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Nigeria), the West Collection (Philadelphia), and the Fondazione di Venezia (Italy).
Art Fairs
