Nengi Omuku

“Even when working with oils on sanyan, I’m aware that I’m bringing together western and West African heritage. I really enjoy being in the middle. It helps me have a broader view of the world.” —Nengi Omuku, as told to Frieze Using the subject of the body to translate interior experience, Nengi Omuku's expressive paintings portray abstracted figures among spectacular, celestial landscapes that draw evocatively from the natural world, horticulture, and creationism. Born in Warri, Nigeria, Omuku spent many years in London while studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, where oil painting remained central to the established canon. Her distinctive, multifaceted process culminates in the application of oil paint in richly-textured brushstrokes to gesso-prepared composite strips of the Nigerian fabric sanyan. A tightly-woven, hand-spun material, sanyan is one of several forms of textile that have shaped Nigeria's cultural history.