ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is a product of an environment influenced by discursive experiences. As a first generation Nigerian-American, my grounds are unstable as to what the status quo is or should be and that suspension is my area of interest. Through myself being a portal between what was left behind and the infinite, it allows for immense potential and reconciliation which I pursue in my practice. I look for the vast emotions one being within the inbetween engages.
My visual language is supported by the splitting of reality created by my very existence and how it can be shown through the dissonance of multimedia. Within my work, I play with the concrete-nature of facts and media through how it alludes to the metaphysical or unperceivable, negating the binary.
By centering the archive as momentum for futurity, I explore the means of departure one has in their individuality and collective identities. While these modes of transportation, performance and reflection are ambiguous, I begin with a memory or inquiry for my investigation. Then through writing, I sort the minutiae to reorder space through collage, video, painting and curation as a means of creating my own context for interiority.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chinenye Ozowalu is a researcher, artist and curator who questions the current world in order to create space for an alternative. Through her curatorial internship at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and special collection internship at the Visual Studies Workshop, Chinenye has facilitated long-form publication projects, gained expertise in rare archive handling and experimental curatorial programming. Chinenye will receive her BFA in Visual Media Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2026 and with her passion for research along with cultural dissemination, she integrates these influences into her artistic and curatorial endeavors.
© Chinenye Ozowalu