Ozioma Onuzulike

Ozioma Onuzulike (b. 1972, Achi, Enugu State, Nigeria) lives and works in Enugu State, Nigeria. A ceramic artist, renowned poet, and a leading figure in the contemporary ceramic art scene in Africa, Ozioma Onuzulike's work directly addresses challenges that are not only historical and contemporary to Africa, but also to the world, such as colonialism, migration, and global warming.

In his Palm Kernel Shell Beads series, Onuzulike reflects on the historical use of beads by European traders as objects of trade for slaves in Africa. Onuzulike uses both discarded palm kernels and those he creates from local clays to recreate palm kernel shells into beads. He uses these new beads to weave textile structures that evoke not the slave trade era but Africa's prestigious cloths, such as the Akwaete of the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, the Kente of Ghana, and even the Aso-Oke of the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. Commemorated in ceramics, we are made aware of the history of these textiles in the West African weaving tradition and their political and cultural status.

In Chainmail, Onuzulike's most recent series, earlier conceptual and technical elements intersect. The artist combines iron oxide with other colorants in the manufacture of thousands of terracotta pieces, adding color and nuances of age. The formal structures in the Chainmail series allude to how what were historically slave chains were transformed into graceful armor by true African nationalists.

Onuzulike graduated First Class from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he is currently professor of ceramic art and African art history, and Director of the University’s Institute of African Studies. Solo exhibitions include Seed Yams of Our Land at the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019, along with a presentation of his poetry collection of the same name, also published by CCA. In addition, his work was included in the exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK, resulting from the [Re:]Entanglements research project led by Professor Paul Basu. Onuzulike is a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Center, Umbertide, Perugia, Italy, where he completed a residency as part of the UNESCO-ASCHBERG Bursary for Artists. He is also a 2011 recipient of the African Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the America Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and a 2010 Leventis Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of London Centre of African Studies, SOAS; and an alumnus of the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, USA. His work is in the collection of the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Lagos, Nigeria; the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK; the Princeton University Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, USA; the Design Museum, Munich, Germany; the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, USA; the Donnersberg Collection, France, among others.