Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu Nigeria, b. 1995

Yadichinma works with a variety of media including painting, photography, sculpture, film and digital media. Influenced broadly by a mix of artistic movements, Yadichinma uses research and documentation of everyday life to instruct her work, resulting in exploratory experiences taking place in real and imagined spaces. She studies lines and forms to question the world and navigate the experience of discovery, ultimately inspired by the theme of change.

Yadichinma's drawings prioritise the spontaneity of the present. In her journals, Ukoha-Kalu makes instinctive marks that produce geometric forms. As a continuous exercise, these drawings document a specific moment, and in that sense is a deeply personal activity. While beginning with an initial impulse and a stream of consciousness, the sketches eventually come to life on their own. Her sketches point to a fundamental aspect of art making and the tactile act of production. Yadichinma expains, "Through actively working out these processes, I am reaching for something I don’t quite have the entire picture of, but is continually manifesting.”

In 2020, Yadichinma participated as ko's nominee for the Artist Residency Programme of Art Dubai. Her residency project will be presented in her solo exhibition at kò in November 2020, titled Saffron in the Desert.