Throughout these series, I cleverly play with the tension between the mundane and the beautiful, the tale within the transformation process, as well as the interplay between object and context.”
In Conversation with the Artist
“When we look at how beautiful or attractive Kente looks, we tend to forget about the process that it goes through before it comes out to be beautiful. In the same way as Kente goes through such a process, I also take this material, which seems to have no voice or attraction, and see how best I can transform it through artistic processes by giving it another voice, meaning, or putting it into another context that will attract people to it.
Making that comparison, my process and that of Kente seem to share certain things in common.
Slippers have histories…you find people's lives written on the material itself. You can see the life of the wearer… it gives you memories of the lives of the people who used them, and that is very important to me. These voices and spirits of the material speak to me while I work.”
“I am looking at the structure of fabric in relation to this exhibition—specifically, the structure of traditional Kente fabric. I am not necessarily copying or reproducing what exists but transforming it using ordinary castaway materials (chale wote). I look at the construction of the Kente strips and am interested not in the formal but in the subtle form of structure.
A different form of structure that is a bit flexible, very adaptable, and which will draw people and make them more receptive to the new form of designs that I am creating.”
Proverb:
"Sɛ wo mpaboa tsew a wo nantsew sisa"
(“Your walking changes if your sandals get torn.”)