Marie Njoku-Obi

Throughout my entire artistic practice, I employ surrealism as a tool for reexamining the pre-conceived barriers of Black liberation. I’m influenced by artists such as Rene Magritte and Kerry James Marshall. Many scenes in my work offer Black figures among dreamlike cloudscapes and thematic metaphors that refer to the intricacy of life, the consequence of introspection, and emotions of vulnerability, hope, and courage. The paintings often result in bright, dynamic, fantasy-adjacent compositions with subjects that catch the viewer in their intense contemplative gaze. In part, the work calls forth the importance of vulnerability (shown in depictions of anatomical hearts and literal windows to the soul) as a tool to build safe community with our lovers, friends, and family alike. Concepts for my work originate from an exploration of self, combined with uncanny allegorical imagery, such as birds, flowers, and location-based details or material elements that tie to my African and Afro-American ancestry. An overarching goal of my work is to represent alternative ways of observing the world around us, and therefore allow space for Black people to envision worlds and futures that do not exist in our current reality, divorced from capitalism, colonialism, and gender binaries.

Currently I am developing a series that explores the personal experience of migration, generational displacement, and ever shifting relationships to community and belonging. With the incorporation of a year of ancestral research and family photos to serve as reference material, each piece plays with memory and tells a portion of the stories of kinsfolk both living and passed on, captured in a moment of their interior lives. Acrylic paint, thread, shells, sequin, and cyanotype compose the visual language that unifies the works; the expression invokes sentiments of reverence, pride, longing for connection, and perseverance of familial structures despite geographical disruption and unexpected relocation.

The subjects of this series are all my family, half of which are Nigerian and half of which originate from the American South. Many migrated to the Bay and LA between the 30’s and 60’s, and we became a multi-generational California family. I was born and raised in San Francisco and was blessed to grow up there before a mixture of forces displaced us from a home that had been owned by the family for 80 years. Each painting in the series depicts family members either inside or standing directly outside of their homes at significant times in their lives. The painting in this show, Leona’s in the Upper Room, depicts my maternal great-grandmother, standing proudly in her home in San Francisco. These snapshots celebrate small everyday moments in each individual’s lives with respect to their past and inclusive of the heritage the family shares. The paintings and mixed media works are an amalgamation of source material, oral storytelling, and surrealist perspectives of a reimagined past. The compositions are real and yet idealistic, and often incorporate materials that pay homage to the subject's life and the pride they felt in their homes.