"Divinty" North Carolina Museum of Art
"Divinty" North Carolina Museum of Art
2017
NCMA hosted D.C.-based Nigerian artist Victor Ekpuk as he christened the newly reinstalled African Gallery with an impressively large and detailed site-specific chalk installation. After spending a day communing with the adjacent El Anatsui and other works in the gallery, he pulled out his iPad and began sketching. What emerged was a wall filled with intricate and densely packed abstract figures and geometric shapes—drawn from the aesthetic philosophy of nsibidi, in which signs convey ideas—contained within the embrace of a divinely inspired figure: Divinity.
Composed with white chalk on a black background, Ekpuk’s drawing referenced the spiritual connotations of white kaolin (clay) in West Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. Divinity’s shape further called to mind Yoruba divination trays, which often feature the face of Eshu, the god of crossroads and big decisions.
-Amanda Maples PhD
Drawing
Mural
