Artist

Onajevwe

Houston, Texas

Onajevwe (b. 2003, Houston, Texas) composites photographs, found images, wood, metal, textile, and cement into sculptural collages that hold personal and collective memory. Working primarily in wood for its domestic and familial associations, she fixes images in resin to mark moments of Black being she considers pivotal, a process she describes as one of ancestral reckoning. Her subversion of religious imagery reflects on a Westernized, post-colonial Nigeria, while the recurring number four, drawn from her position as one of four children, structures her practice as a framework of protection and inheritance. Portrait by Patricia Li.