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Victor Ehikhamenor

Born 1970, Udomi-Uwessan, Edo State · works in Lagos · artist, photographer and writer

He represented Nigeria at Venice in 2017, the first time the country had a pavilion of its own at the Biennale.

Victor Ehikhamenor standing in front of a large black linework painting on a pale ground.
Victor Ehikhamenor, photographed 2016, in front of one of his own works. Photograph by Victorsozaboy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

From Faith's own walls, not yours

Poured dark form with drips, ringed by red looping linework.
Untitled, 2016. Ink, pigment and mixed media on paper.
Red and black poured form with drips and red looping linework.
Untitled, 2016.
Dark form shot with blue and yellow, drips running to the lower edge.
Untitled, 2016.

In this collection

Three works on paper, all signed and dated 2016, hung apart from one another in the house. Each is built the same way: a poured dark form that reads two ways at once, as a head crowned with an afro and as the outline of a continent, ringed by a dense field of looping red line, with the paint let run in long threads to the bottom of the sheet.

All three sit behind glass. The reflections in the photographs on this site have been removed, which means the areas they covered were reconstructed rather than uncovered.

The work

His work is described as abstract, symbolic and politically motivated, and draws on traditional African practices: cloth weaving, the mark-making found on shrine walls, and pigment made from clay and charcoal. He works across visual art, photography and writing.

He studied at Ambrose Alli University and at the University of Maryland, and returned to Nigeria in 2008. He works in Lagos.

Venice, 2017

In 2017 he was selected, with Peju Alatise and Qudus Onikeku, to represent Nigeria at the 57th Venice Biennale. It was the first time Nigeria was represented at the event with its own pavilion. He had already shown at the 56th Biennale in 2015, in Tobias Zielony’s project for the German Pavilion, contributing Displacement.

Selected exhibitions and honours

  1. 2022Still Standing, installation, St Paul's Cathedral, London
  2. 2020National Artist in Residence, Neon Museum, Las Vegas
  3. 2018Civitella Ranieri Fellow · Art Dubai Residency
  4. 2017Nigerian Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale
  5. 2016Dakar Biennale · Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow · Nirox and Greatmore residencies
  6. 201556th Venice Biennale, Displacement, in the German Pavilion · Biennale Jogja XIII, Indonesia, per his own CV

Also a writer

He has published Sordid Rituals (2002), a collection of poetry, and Excuse Me! (2012), creative non-fiction.

The hand

He signs his whole name and the year, lower right on every sheet. That is why these three were the easiest works in the house to place.
He signs his whole name and the year, lower right on every sheet. That is why these three were the easiest works in the house to place.
Where this came from Biography, exhibitions and honours from his Wikipedia entry. Year and authorship of the three works read from his signature, which he writes out in full. An earlier version of this site described the red linework as Uli, the Igbo tradition. He is from Edo State, and that attribution was wrong; it has been corrected.