Samuel Nnorom (b. 1990) is a multi-award-winning artist whose work poetically crosses tapestry-like sculpture and pre-loved Ankara wax fabric. Since early childhood, elements that now shape his contemporary practice have surrounded him: sketching portraits of customers who visited his father’s shoe shop and playing with colourful scraps from his mother’s tailoring workshop crystallised his artistic vocation.
Self-proclaimed “custodian of material culture”, Nnorom draws upon materiality in a unique way, dedicating his art to textile recycling and a sociological reflection on the human condition. Through sewing, tying and cutting, the rising artist creates intricate constellations of fabric-covered foam balls meticulously stitched together, evoking a metaphor for a “fabric of society” composed of closed social structures forming the bubbles in which our daily lives are wrapped in. Using Ankara textiles –whose origins are complex in the history of the continent, Nnorom explores its protean symbolism and reappropriates a contemporary fabric omnipresent in his community.
Currently living and working in Nsukka, Samuel Nnorom holds an MFA in sculpture from the University of Nigeria. He cumulates numerous workshops and residencies in England, South Africa, Burkina Faso, France, Senegal and Nigeria, including Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock artist residency in 2023. Nnorom has had numerous solo shows, group shows and art fairs globally, as well as being commissioned several times for public works in his home country. He won the Africa prize 2021: Strauss & Co and Cassirer Welz Award, and a global prize for “Art for Change Award 2022” organised by M&C Saatchi Group, ex aequo the Ettore e Ines Fico Prize at the Artissima fair 2023 and 5 selected finalist for Craft Council and Brookfield Properties award UK 2023.