IJE-ARTIST

IJE ARTIST STATEMENT

My work seeks to reshape embodied notions, responding to encounters with time, space and change through making and documenting; generating works activated through colour, gesture, texture, layering, fabrication, repetition and reflectivity.

Undertaking durational activity in the landscape, I wonder about what went before me and what may lie ahead; I wonder about singularities and multiples, about time, capacity for change and the energy around me. I am interested in exploring concepts such as: perdurance, time; topographical encounters; prepositions of space; the elements and movement.

I create artworks that vary in size and format, most often on a larger scale that are rhizomatically connected through conceptual series and/or experiences. All work starts with a refrain, an idea intensifying through a phrase or sound or movements until I am galvanised to act, to commence the physical making process. Initial and final layers are the most energetic with measured beats in between; working quickly concealing / revealing, creating spaces and moments be explored from a distance or closer to.

In 2018 I began to integrate different media as PFHOEMS – painting/ film/ photography / poetry / spoken word and to explore sculptural forms using “yarn”, textiles, paper, metal and clay; experimenting with concepts of growth/mutability/interconnectedness through shaping spaces, suspension and weaving. Going forwards, identity is becoming increasingly significant and with louder voice and I am finding the confidence to express my current manifestation as a woman of colour, a Scottish, Nigerian healer living in a world that has sought to impose gender and/or racial expectations upon me.