AMARACHI OKAFOR

Amarachi Okafor is an institutionally orientated artist who makes quirky experimental artworks across diverse materials, investigating human actions in society, the concept of use, and the history in (used) things.

Artist Statement

My paintings, sculptures, and installations explore transformation and innovation while communicating playfulness and quiet enjoyment.

I engage with the histories that are fixed in used things, which tell of our lived lives held within them, as they have witnessed these. They bear our past and present actions, and in their tale about these, they reveal our future. They embody memory. I investigate and try to fathom this memory and experience.

My work is inspired by people’s living (actions) and the everyday. Influenced by architecture and design—lines, shapes, forms, and the histories of ordinary, mundane materials—I enjoy innovation and participation. I create unique, quirky artworks that reference human actions and activities in society and how these affect the general human condition.

I live and work in a quiet neighbourhood outside Abuja, Nigeria, where I find freedom and delight in assembling locally found materials into objects of contemplation that I sometimes invite my audiences to contribute to. Experimentation, an affinity for fabrics, and curiosity about colour and movement drive me.

I explore fibres in found used fabrics; naturally occurring fibres in local food plants – okra, sugarcane, sisal, and banana – made into handmade paper; fibres in thread and used cartons; and synthetic fibres/plastic in recovered cigarette filters and used plastic bags.