Otobong Nkanga, Unearthed – Sunlight
Detail from: Otobong Nkanga, Unearthed – Sunlight, 2021, Musea Brugge
In the solo exhibition Underneath the Shade We Lay Grounded at St John's Hospital, Otobong Nkanga created a dialogue between her own works of art (some new and some pre-existing) and works of art she has selected from the collection of Musea Brugge, from amongst others Hans Memling and Jan Beerblock.
In 2021, Otobong Nkanga created a series of four breathtaking tapestries in co-creation with the TextielLab of the TextielMuseum in Tilburg. The 6 by 3.5-metre tapestries depict human destruction of nature and the pressing social issues associated with life on earth. Musea Brugge has acquired two works from this series that are on display in Bruges: Sunlight and Abyss, both edition 2/5 from 2021. In these impressive works, Otobong Nkanga plays with volumes and textures.
Otobong Nkanga (°1974, Kano, Nigeria) is a visual and performance artist, who lives and works in Antwerp. Nkanga focuses on concepts such as identity; raw materials as a symbol for territory, power and conflict; exploitation of the landscape, people and labour; globalisation and transformation. Nkanga’s oeuvre is multi-faceted, including drawings, performances, sculptures and other media.
Otobong Nkanga has already built up an impressive track record of success, with exhibitions in the Tate Modern in London, Biennale d’art contemporain in Lyon, M HKA in Antwerp, Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, and Kunsthaus Bregenz. She was the first laureate of the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award (Oslo, 2019), and in addition has received the Peter Weiss Award (Bochum, 2019), a Special Mention Award at the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (Venice, 2019), the Ultima for Visual Art (Brussels, 2019), the Belgian Art Prize (Brussels, 2017) and the 8th Yanghyun Art Prize (Seoul, 2015).