Nengi Omuku, (B.1987, Nigeria) is a visual artist who lives and works in Lagos. She completed both her BA and MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.
Omuku creates ethereal scenes of figures in constant flux, interacting with one another and the landscape around them. Inspired by both archival and current images taken from the Nigerian press and media, she creates worlds in which the distinction between bodies and nature is often blurred, reflecting on the intricacies around navigating place and belonging.
The images are rendered in oil paint and painted on strips of Sanyan; a pre-colonial Western Nigerian fabric, created from woven threads of wild moth silk and blended with industrial cotton. For the artist, the blend of oil paint and Sanyan speaks to living between cultures, yet firmly contextualizing her work within her local setting of Nigeria.
Nengi Omuku’s artistic practice has won scholarships and awards, including the British Council CHOGM art award presented by HM Queen Elizabeth II. Commissions include the Arts Council England to paint a mural in an intensive care psychiatric ward at the Maudsley Hospital, London.
Omuku has shown her work across the world, with solo shows in Lagos, London, Berlin & New York and institutional shows at La Galerie Centre d’Art Contemporain, Paris, the Shyllon Museum, Lagos, the World Trade Organization, Geneva and the New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge. Omuku’s work can be found in international private and public collections, such as the HSBC Art Collection, the Bunker Artspace Museum, Loewe Art Collection, Monsoon Art Collection, Easton Capital Collection, Azman Museum; Dawn Art Collection; Women’s Art Collection, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), Perez Art Museum, Miami, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge; The ICA Miami Collection; The Whitworth Collection and The Baltimore Museum of Art Collection.