Samuel Nnorom

Visual Artist

About me

Who is Samuel Nnorom?

Biograhpy

Born in Nigeria in 1990, Samuel Nnorom is a multi-award-winning artist whose work poetically crosses tapestry-like sculpture and pre-loved Ankara wax fabric. Since early childhood, elements that now shape his contemporary practice have surrounded him: sketching portraits of customers who visited his father’s shoe shop and playing with colourful scraps from his mother’s tailoring workshop crystallised his artistic vocation.

Using Ankara textiles – whose origins are complex in the history of the continent, Nnorom explores its protean symbolism and reappropriates a contemporary fabric omnipresent in his community.

Artist Statement

My interest lies in the history, value, meaning, politics, consumption, power, and identity represented on the Dutch wax prints or African print fabric (Ankara) and the second-hand or used clothes (Okirika), which are predominantly consumed within my local community and West Africa. Fabrics evoke a sense of social structure or organisation that interlaces humanity into society; however, when referring to the “fabric of society” or “social fabric,” it is unique to different societies that inform my contemplation on socio-political structures, consumerism, industrialization, and colonial remnants. These themes are sometimes expressed through metaphors such as bubble forms, bindle forms, lines of fabric strips, exploded bubbles, and tied clothes on architectural structures or canvases using techniques such as cutting, rolling, stitching, tying, and installation. Such expressions respond to our daily lives and struggles while fostering commonality and social connection.
I hope for my works to inspire endless possibilities in the minds of audiences by promoting self-interrogation and critical thinking while appreciating artistry at its finest.