I recently came across the work of the Nigerian-American artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Her work is a clear embodiment of the principles and elements of design, and thus a great choice for this first new blog post of 2017.
Akunyili Crosby was born and raised in Nigeria, moving to the United States at the age of 16 to attend school. She currently makes her home in Los Angeles but returns on a regular basis to Nigeria. Of her work she says, “an overarching theme is the union between two cultures…{and} negotiating dual ideals of home.”
Her work is both personal and universal. The people she portrays in her paintings are family and friends engaged in intimate activities such as eating, lounging together in the living room, dancing – domestic scenes that can transcend place. Layered into the work are images specific to Nigeria – legendary dictators, pop culture icons, Nigerian portrait fabrics. Together they weave a complex picture of cultural identity.
In the work Akunyili Crosby wants to move beyond the easy stereotypes of African life. She does this through mining the areas were the personal and the political intersect and by combining her training in a western painting tradition with specifically Nigerian imagery. She’s a traveler among cultures – traditional Nigeria, a new cosmopolitan Africa and an American view of the world.
She explains her work with this example, “… Stuck in traffic, 30 minutes late for a meeting – that is the bulk of life. It’s a horrible example, but even in the midst of a tragedy like the Ebola epidemic – most people are probably just living their lives. That’s why so many of my figures [in the paintings] are really doing nothing. I think people sensationalize places in their heads, so I wanted to show just how normal life is in Nigeria.”
Akunyili Crosby uses composition and design to amplify the content of her paintings, creating a complicated map of her universe. I’m struck by her use of space, in particular the integration of positive and negative space, and the interweaving of pattern and representational imagery. The spaces are both deep and flat, representational and abstract. The small photographic images draw the viewer in, while the larger compositional shapes push them out, all part of her desire to make multiple spaces that exist together physically and metaphorically.
I’ve included a detail of the painting above to help you understand Akunyili Crosby’s process. She works on large sheets of paper (some paintings are over eight feet wide), combining colored pencil, charcoal, paint, collage and acetone transfers. The canvas is divided into bold shapes that are balanced by patterns composed of tiny photographic collage and photo transfers. All of the elements add up to make a densely layered and rhythmic work that seems to be both tranquil and in constant motion.
If you’ve read our book Design: A Beginner’s Handbook I think you’ll agree that Akunyili Crosby’s work is a masterful display of the use of the elements and principles of design, used to create what she calls “…a transcultural space, this weird, buzzing in-between space, a kind of no-man’s land.”
