Born in London, Ndidi Dike
is a major sculptor from Nigeria.
she studied painting
at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Over the decades Ndidi has successfully worked across a multiplicity of contemporary fields of art. This artistic involvement has evolved into multidimensional and multimedia structures and meanings that have defined her engagement with, long term based research, materials and ideas in conventional and unconventional experimental processes. She has exhibited widely and internationally while engaging with indigenous histories, slavery, forced migration, remembrance, gender inequality, patriarchy ,consumerism, marginalisation, displacement , and pre-post colonial histories, natural resource extractive industries and contemporary politics. She runs a full time studio in Lagos.
“The History of the Tasmanian Aboriginal, first nation’s peoples and ancestry is complex considering its penal legacy and settler economies . The traditional welcoming ceremony and fire cleansing traditions I encountered and connected us to the landowners and their ancestors. Certain accoutrements in the ceremony such as the red and yellow ochre in particular resonated and have affinity with my own Nigerian culture and in particular the tradition of Uli ,the technique, of traditional painting on the female body and mural method used by the traditional Igbo women ( exclusively) to paint on natural houses, compound walls and communal shrines found among the Igbos in the south eastern part of Nigeria that is becoming extinct. They use a traditionally earth and plant-based palette, e g red and yellow ochre, white clay (Nzu)and indigo from a plant. Another tradition we use to welcome strangers is the use of the Okwa Nzu and kola nuts.All these elements and more can be engaged in a mutual collaboration to create synergies by developing a multi-disciplinary experiential installation encounter.”
– Ndidi Dike
Ndidi’s Residency at Salamanca Arts Centre in August 2019 was part of the First Nations Residency Program.
Image Credits:
Photographs by Andrew Esiebu.