Precious Okoyomon: Art, Poetry, and the Beauty of Impermanence

The Art of Precious Okoyomon

• 💡 Precious Okoyomon's art is described as a "garden of earthly delights," embracing beauty, decay, and poetry.
• 🎭 Their work explores the interplay of dark and light, matter and impermanence, often featuring elements that evoke dreams or nightmares.
• ✍️ Okoyomon's installations are frequently accompanied by fables and poetry, serving as a medium to explore complex themes.

"It's important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world"

• 📖 The exhibition's title is likened to a dark fairy tale, with a fable that teaches about openness and vulnerability amidst darkness.
• 🐻 The fable features bears whose power lies in their constant unfolding of openness and light, even in a world that might seek to destroy them.
• 🌌 Okoyomon aims to translate imagined gardens and unconscious fantasies into tangible artworks, with each piece being a seed of a dream.

Inspiration from Brazil and Lagos

• ⏳ The installation "Son of Consciousness. God blow through me. Love break me." was inspired by the geological time and humbling gravity of the Brazilian desert.
• 🌈 The experience in Brazil, surrounded by ancient rocks and rainbows, led to a poem reflecting a sense of cosmic time and being unmade by love and earthly wind.
• 🗣️ For the Nigerian pavilion in Venice, Okoyomon created a sound sculpture in Lagos, archiving stories and confessions from strangers, forming a "language of love."

Nature and Relational Practice

• 🌿 Nature and gardens are central to Okoyomon's work, stemming from a childhood spent managing gardens with their mother and grandmother.
• 🌳 The artist sees gardens as a slow, transformative process that mirrors personal growth and influences subsequent creations.
• 🧩 Collaboration with nature is a frequent and thought-provoking element, challenging the idea of art as solely an object to be owned, emphasizing instead the experience and uncontrollable source.

Nigerian Artistic Heritage

• 🌍 Okoyomon's practice is rooted in a relational way of life that is organic to their family, viewing art as a practice of living, joy, and abundance.
• 🎨 The artist acknowledges the rich modernist moment in Nigerian art, as celebrated in exhibitions like the one at Tate Modern, but emphasizes that their own work is universal, not a specific representation of Nigerian art.
• 🎶 A recent cultural radar mention was the musician Ka, whose work is appreciated for its "sensuality of abundance and play."