Samuel Nnorom
Bio/CV:
Samuel Nnorom (b.1990) is a Nigerian-born visual. He discovered his talent at the age of 9 years while assisting his father in his shoe workshop – where he started making life drawings of customers that visited the shop. He was also influenced by his mother's tailoring workshop –as a kid who played with colourful fabrics with sewing needles and thread. He went further to develop this talent through apprenticeship, training, workshops, Exhibitions, art school and practice.
Samuel holds an MFA in sculpture from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and is a full-time practising studio artist with many awards, exhibitions and residencies which include 3rd and 1st prize for the National Gallery of Art 2010 and 2012 respectively, won prizes in 2016, 2017 and 2019 editions of the Life in My City Art Festival. He was the first prize recipient (leatherwork category) of the Icreate Africa 2019. Nnorom has received invitations to important workshops and group exhibitions, including the international art workshop by IICD at the United States Embassy, Abuja (2019), Rele Young Contemporary Bootcamp 2021, published in an international magazine the UK (zine, issue 11, artist responding to issues) and Haus-a-rest, issue 17 Material Damage 2021, Cassirer Welz Award, Bag factory and Strauss & co South Africa 2022, recipient of 2022 Royal Over-Sea League and Art House Residency London, recipient of Guest Art Space (GAS) fellowship and residency from Yinka Shonibare Foundation 2022, shortlisted for Prince Claus Funds CAREC and Mentorship 2022/2023, Noldor fellowship and Residency 2023, and several others. He belongs to the New Nsukka School of Art and he is currently exploring Okirika clothes and Ankara fabric using bubble techniques as sculptural media while interrogating human experiences that relate to consumption, environment, sociopolitical and economic issues through questioning.
Artist Statement:
Samuel’s body of work is made from pieces of Ankara fabric/ African wax print fabrics collected from either tailor's debris or cast-off clothes from homes and waste foams from furniture workshops, wrapped and stitched into bubbles of various colours and sizes; through actions like sewing, rolling, tying, stringing, suspending, cutting, among others, which navigate boundaries between textiles, painting and sculpture in a poetic rendition.
He is interested in the identity and meaning that fabrics represent especially the Ankara fabric which is mostly consumed in his local community and west Africa. Fabric suggests to him a social structure or social organization that weaves humanity into society; in the case of “fabric of society” or “social fabric”, however, it is peculiar to different societies while bubble suggests a structure that holds or stores something for a period of time. His mission through actions like cutting, rolling, stitching, sewing and installation is to engage viewers in self-interrogation, critical thinking and questioning of sociopolitical structures and the human conditions of what truth and conspiracy connote to our daily lives wrapped in bubbles.
“Burnt Roses” wrapped, tied, stitched, dyed and painted into bubbles of uncertainties disguising itself as a mirage. The metaphor for “burnt roses” represents good luck and good fortune. “Yellow Quake” in a dark moment when all we stitch up are negative thoughts in our bubbles, we become neutral to standing up for what we believe and gradual we became dark. The yellow quake is a call to action to embrace hope, happiness and clarity amid “Dark Matters”.
Solo Exhibitions:
2013: Solo Exhibition titled “contemporary Renaissance”, FAA Departmental Gallery (October 9-11), Plateau, Nigeria
Exhibitions & Awards:
2022: AKAA Art Fair, Paris
2022: Recycle Matter, Alexis Gallery Lagos Nigeria
2022: Matters of Essential, a Salon Show at Ko Artspace, Lagos Nigeria.
2022: Voices of Textile at Gallery Marion Chauvy, Paris, France.
2021: Wielding Power, joint exhibition, Gallery At The Landmark, Lagos.
2021: Rele Art Foundation, Exhibition of Young Contemporary Artists, Ekiti State.
2019: Best work, Enugu zone, Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria.
2019: First prize, Leatherworks, Icreate Africa, Landmark Centre Oniru Lagos, Nigeria
2019: United States International Institute for Creative Development Exhibition, 4 Oguda Close Maitama Abuja, Nigeria.
2019: One Environment Hybrid Art Exhibition, Ceddi plaza Abuja, Nigeria.
2018: Life in My City Art Festival, 2018. Top 100, Enugu, Nigeria.
2018: NNPC and Chevron Art Teachers Certificate of Achievement, Lagos, Nigeria
2017: NNPC and Chevron Art Teacher’s Certificate of Achievement, Lagos, Nigeria
2017: Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria
2017: Top 50 prize, Union Bank Art Challenge, Lagos, Nigeria
2016: African Art Resource Centre, art exhibition, National Museum Onikan Lagos, Nigeria.
2016: Spanish Art Competition, Thought Pyramid Art Center Abuja, Nigeria,
2016: Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu Nigeria
2015: 6th National Visual Art Competition (Theme: National Security and Stable Power Supply) Abuja, Nigeria.
2014: Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria.
2013: Splendid Art Exhibition, Faculty of law, lecture hall university of Jos, Plateau, Nigeria.
2013: Puscat Art Competition, 2nd Prize Winner. Plateau Nigeria
2013: Life in My City Art Festival, Enugu, Nigeria.
2014: African Art Resource Center (AARC), Art for Life, Lagos, Nigeria.
2012: 1st Prize Winner, Tertiary Category, 4th National Visual Art Competition, Nigeria Gallery of Art (Theme: National Security), Abuja Nigeria.
2010: 3rd National Visual Art Competition, Nigeria Gallery of Art, Tertiary Category; (Theme: Electoral Reform as Ethics for Good Governance), Abuja Nigeria.
Public Art:
2013: Berom Victory, 30 feet, concrete sculpture, Barkin Ladi, Plateau State.
2019: Late Prof. Chinua Achebe, 4.2 feet, concrete bust Sculpture, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
2020: Late Prof. Dora Akunyili, 9.1 feet, concrete sculpture, Anambra State.
Social: @nnoromsanuel