Wura-Natasha Ogunji's second solo exhibition at Tiwani Contemporary, the first at its London space.
Wura-Natasha Ogunji's upcoming exhibition, space comma space comma space embraces not-knowing, the breaking of habits, irreverence and the use of mistakes as integral components of the creative process. Through works on paper, the artist creates a memoir of her time inside the studio - through acts of stitching, cutting, tearing and tracing. The drawings, paintings, and collages are in conversation through shared marks and methods, as well as through titles which suggest a more literal dialogue between the works themselves.
Wura-Natasha Ogunji is a visual artist and performer. Her works include drawings, paintings, videos and public performances. She is deeply inspired by the daily interactions and frequencies that occur in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, where she currently lives. Ogunji's performances explore the presence of women in public space; these often include investigations of labor, leisure, freedom and frivolity.
With this new body, Ogunji uses magazine pages, gessoed tissue paper, and glassine, as well as the architectural tracing paper for which she is known. Many of the works have an almost-hyperbolic density to them--especially when considered alongside her past oeuvre where stitched figures are commonly surrounded by large expanses of paper-space. There is an irreverence for the correct way materials should be used: oil paint on tracing paper, a two-sided painting (where only one side is visible, but both are important), or the combination of oil and ink forming a resist pattern of dots along the surface of the trace. In other works, like Lagoon in Tatters, cut paper becomes fringe, leaving two large openings, the paper falling beyond the edges of its own borders. In a similar drawing, those same lagoon lines become an oasis. Or, perhaps the large hole in the paper is the space of refuge.
Recent exhibitions include A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern, 2023-24; rīvus, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, 2022; Diaspora at Home, Kadist Foundation, Paris, 2021; and The Power of My Hands: Afrique(s) artistes femmes, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 2021.
Thursday 3 April - 24 May 2025
Tiwani Contemporary, 24 Cork Street, London, W1S 3NG
Opening times: Tue - Fri: 10am to 6pm; Sat: 11am to 6pm
Further Information: Wura-Natasha Ogunji Tiwani Contemporary