About |

I was born on the continent of Africa in Lagos, Nigeria in 1984. My family moved shortly afterwards to Antigua in the West Indes (Caribbean) where I spent the next four years of my early childhood before coming to the United States in 1990. My introduction to the States was a blur of new sights and contrasts from my life oversees. In the midst of this transition I stepped into creative awareness aimlessly drawing and sketching in preschool - pouring out lines from my pencil and finding new worlds and familiar beings in the mess. Abstraction was my first avenue into genuine creation and artistic expression, soon supported by a deep admiration for a host artists ranging from Michelangelo to Picasso, whose works I copied and studied with fervor as a child. At a young age my aesthetic sensibility was nurtured by the interest and supportive leading of my father, the assertive and practical encouragement of my mother, numerous teachers who recognized my ability, and a host of friends who were always a curious and engaged audience for any of my artistic feats however major or minor.

High school culminated in my big step into the world of sculpture along with my introduction to the dynamic medium of clay. More than copying or reinterpreting reality within a two dimensional frame, as I was used to in drawing and painting, I wanted to create objects that took up space in my own multidimensional world as expressions of force and being. I wanted the life of my work to be kinetic and self-aware; both holding and defining its own presence. This drive has influenced all of my work since and was the foundation of my sculptural interests and explorations in college.

As a ceramics major at the Rhode Island School of Design I had both the freedom and the flexibility to develop the technical and philosophical aims of my work within the mysterious realm of an ever deepening and altering “vision”. Inspired by many artists: Isamu Noguchi, Rodin, Peter Callas, Tom and Elaine Coleman, Motherwell, Pollock… I began to explore connections of identity and relative versus inherent associations in the language of form. These explorations were reinforced and further catapulted by the voices I chimed with in my studies of new American poetry and literature (Baraka, Ginsberg, Hughes…) along with my deep interest in the classics and avant-garde of music ranging from Schubert through Coltrane to Radiohead.

My artistic efforts up to this point can be summarized as the energetic reconciliation of the infinite yet personal transcendence of beauty into an honest and constructive dialogue with the limited wholeness of our existence – bringing heaven down to earth.

I presently live and work in Long Island City/Queens, NYC where I enjoy the many benefits of being in a cultural and artistic hub of the world, with all sorts of inspiration finding me daily in its streets or falling within a subway ride away.