Artist Talk | ruby onyinyechi amanze in Conversation with Yvette Greslé

About

ruby onyinyechi amanze discusses her practice and her first solo exhibition, taking place at Tiwani Contemporary, with independent art historian and writer Yvette Greslé. The event will be introduced by a short collaborative performance by ruby onyinyechi amanze and Wura-Natasha Ogunji. 

About ruby onyinyechi amanze:
ruby onyinyechi amanze (b. 1982) is a Brooklyn based artist of Nigerian birth and British upbringing. Her drawings and works on paper have been greatly influenced by this cultural hybridity, as well as pulling visual inspiration from textile design, photography, print making and architecture. amanze graduated Summa Cum Laude from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. She then went on to pursue a M.F.A. at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

amanze has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including New York, Lagos and London. In 2012 she was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholars Award to teach and research at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She is currently a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Artist-in-Residence, New York City (September 2014 - May 2015).

About Yvette Greslé:
Yvette Greslé is a London-based independent art historian and writer. In January 2015, she submitted her PhD dissertation to the History of Art Department, University College London, and is awaiting her viva. The title of her PhD is ‘Video Art, Traumatic Memory and the Historical Event in the Work of Four South African Woman Artists (Jo Ractliffe, Penny Siopis, Berni Searle, Minnette Vári)’. Yvette is also a London-based Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. She writes for a number of arts publications based in the UK, Europe, Canada and South Africa. An interview with ruby onyinyechi amanze was published in 'this is tomorrow' in 2014.

About Wura-Natasha Ogunji:
Wura-Natasha Ogunji is a visual artist and performer. Her works include drawings stitched into paper and videos in which she engages her body in explorations of movement and mark-making across water, land and air. As a recent recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2012), she created performance works about the presence of women in public space in Lagos, Nigeria. She has performed at Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Menil Collection. Ogunji has received grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Idea Fund. She has a BA from Stanford University (Anthropology) and an MFA from San Jose State University (Photography). She lives in Austin, USA and Lagos, Nigeria.

Tiwani Contemporary's Public Programme is generously supported by the A.G. Leventis Foundation.