Samuel Nnorom Nigerian, b. 1990

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Born in Nigeria in 1990, Samuel Nnorom is a multi-award-winning artist whose work poetically crosses tapestry-like sculpture and pre-loved Ankara wax fabric. Since early childhood, elements that now shape his contemporary practice have surrounded him: sketching portraits of customers who visited his father’s shoe shop and playing with colourful scraps from his mother’s tailoring workshop crystallised his artistic vocation. Self-proclaimed “custodian of material culture”, Nnorom draws upon materiality in a unique way, dedicating his art to textile recycling and a sociological reflection on the human condition. Through sewing, tying and cutting, the rising artist creates intricate constellations of fabric-covered foam balls meticulously stitched together, evoking a metaphor for a “fabric of society” composed of closed social structures forming the bubbles in which our daily lives are wrapped in. Using Ankara textiles – whose origins are complex in the history of the continent, Nnorom explores its protean symbolism and reappropriates a contemporary fabric omnipresent in his community.
 
Currently living and working in Nsukka, Samuel Nnorom holds an MFA in sculpture from the University of Nigeria. He cumulates numerous workshops and residencies in England, South Africa and Nigeria, notably integrating G.A.S. in early 2022, the residency founded by Yinka Shonibare whose renowned exploration of wax fabric echoes that of Nnorom. The up-and-coming artist also took part in numerous group shows and art fairs between Nigeria and France, as well as being commissioned several times for public works in his home country. Nnorom is a three-time Life in My City Art Festival awardee and was the first-prize recipient of the iCreate Africa prize in 2019. In December 2022, he was named the overall winner of the annual international art initiative Art for Change Prize, his work being selected from over 2500 entries across 130 countries. 
He is interested in the identity and meaning that fabrics represent especially the Ankara fabric which is mostly consumed in his local community and west Africa. Fabric suggests to him a social structure or social organization that weaves humanity into society; in the case of “fabric of society” or “social fabric”, however, it is peculiar to different societies while bubble suggests a structure that holds or stores something for a period of time. His mission through actions like cutting, rolling, stitching, sewing and installation is to engage viewers in self-interrogation, critical thinking and questioning of sociopolitical structures and the human conditions of what truth and conspiracy connote to our daily lives wrapped in bubbles.

 

MUSEUM SHOWS

2023 - International contemporary art exhibition “Paragone: What’s with mediums today?”, The Water Museum – EPAL, at the Depósito da Patriarcal and at the Cape Verde Cultural Centre, Portugal.

 

BIENNIAL SHOWS

2024 - Dakar Biennial, Senegal
2023 - BISO International Biennial of Sculpture of Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso.
 

ART RESIDENCIES

 

2024 - Black Rock Senegal.

2023 - BISO Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso

2022/2023 - Gas Artist Space (GAS) Yinka Shonibare Foundation Residency, Nigeria.

2022 - ROSL and Art House Residency, London.

 

SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2024 - Interwoven Narratives: Solo exhibition Galerie REVEL, Bordeaux, France

2023 - Matérialités, Galerie REVEL, Bordeaux, France

2023 - Points of Departure, Art Mûr, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

2023 - Dark Matter, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, USA

2023 - Truth and Conspiracy, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy

2023 - Collect Art Fair, Galerie REVEL, Somerset House, London, UK

2022 - Recycle Matter, Alexis Gallery Lagos, Nigeria

2022 - Matters of Essential, a Salon Show at Ko Artspace, Lagos Nigeria

2019 - Wielding Power, Gallery At The Landmark, Lagos, Nigeria

2019 - Best work, Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria

2019 - First prize, Leatherworks, Icre- ate Africa, Landmark Centre Oniru Lagos, Nigeria

2019 - United States International Institute for Creative Development Exhibition, 4 Oguda

2019 - Close Maitama Abuja, Nigeria One Environment Hybrid Art Exhibition, Ceddi plaza Abuja, Nigeria

2019 - Top 100 - Life in My City Art Festival, 2018, Enugu, Nigeria

2017 - NNPC and Chevron Art Teacher’s Certificate of Achievement, Lagos, Nigeria

2017 - Top 50 - Life in My City Art Festival, Lagos, Nigeria

2017 - African Art Resource Centre, National Museum Onikan Lagos, Nogeria

2016 - Spanish Art Competition, Thought Pyramid Art Center Abuja, Nigeria

2016 - Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu Nigeria

2013 - Contemporary Renaissance, FAA Departmental Gallery (October 9-11), Plateau, Nigeria

2013 - Splendid Art Exhibition, Faculty of law, University of Jos, Plateau, Nigeria

2013 - Puscat Art Competition, 2nd Prize Winner, Plateau Nigeria

2013 - African Art Resource Center, Art for Life, Lagos, NG

 

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