About the work

Nigerian-American artist Chioma Ebinama draws from an array of visual and cultural references, employing myth and cosmology as a guide for examining her inner life. Her practice centres around watercolours on paper, a medium that elucidates the process of mark-making as both a meditative act and a tool for self-liberation.

Raised in the United States by Nigerian Christian immigrants, Ebinama is drawn to the aesthetic of formalised religion for its potential to celebrate inner life. As she seeks to create new mythologies for the African Diaspora, her work is influenced by a myriad of sources, from West African cosmology to folk art of the global South, to the visual language of Western religion and Eastern spiritual traditions. Her work also reflects on gender and queer identities through a figurative language that is informed by surrealism and Igbo culture among other sources.

Date and country of birth

1988, US

Career Highlights

Selected solo exhibitions include This Mud-Formed Life, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway, (2024); The Eyes of the Beloved are Everywhere, Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna, Hove (2023); The Eleventh House, The Breeder, Athens, Greece (2023); tipota, Fortnight Institute, New York (2022); A Spiral Shell, Maureen Paley, London (2021); Lay All Your Love On Me, Salon 94, New York, (2021). Ebinama recently participated in the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary at Nottingham Contemporary, Lewis Glucksman Gallery and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.

Selected Collections: Whitney Museum Collection, Perez Museum Collection and LACMA Collection.