AUTO-GRAPHICS
Works by Victor Ekpuk
April 18–August 2, 2015
The Hood Museum of Art. Dartmouth College, NH, USA
Composition No 13, 2013.
About:
Market Day, 2007.
Nigerian-born artist Victor Ekpuk is best known for his improvisational use of nsibidi, a form of writing with symbols associated with the powerful Ekpe men’s association of southeastern Nigeria. Ekpuk’s aesthetic engagement with nsibidi emerged during his fine art studies at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife, Nigeria, where students were encouraged to explore the logics of pattern and design in indigenous African art forms. His fascination with nsibidi during these years—its economy of line and encoded meanings—led to his broader explorations of drawing as writing, and to the invention of his own fluid letterforms. As a mature artist, Ekpuk has so internalized the rhythm and contours of his “script” that it flows from his hand like the outpouring of a personal archive.
Sanctuary, 2008.
This exhibition was organized by Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and curated by Allyson Purpura. It was partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. The exhibition’s presentation at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, was generously supported by the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund and the Cissy Patterson Fund.
Santa Fe, 2013.