Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia
Location: Glasgow
Biography
Elena Njoabuzia Onwochei-Garcia’s installations of painted walls of paper explore how the dynamics between people are shaped by what appears to be real and the possibilities of fiction. The compositions, collages and entanglements of historical and popular images and narratives focus on the elements affecting the character’s behaviours, playing out refuted experiences. Once within the walls of washi paper the spectator is caught within a network of relations which are defined by histories that charge their interactions. The immersive triptychs implicate the viewers and their bodies into the setting in order to emphasise and discomfort the connection between the spectator, painting, and subject. The layers of paint and narratives intertwine fables and falsehoods so that allegories emerge and retreat.
Submitted work
Title: "¡Silencio!"
About the work
The triptych explores how dynamics replicate themselves through generations and how the insularity of those relationships affirms and conditions their nature. The series draws on Garcia Lorca’s play La Casa de Bernarda Alba, a world which is exclusively governed by negation in its many forms: rejection, emptiness, sterility, absence of sensation, loneliness, seclusion and denial.
‘’Winning the Robert Walters Group UK New Artist of the Year Award would grant me the incredible opportunity to dedicate myself to further developing my practice at a pivotal moment in my career. Being selected has been such an affirmation of the relevance of my work within contemporary art. It means so much to be shortlisted for the Robert Walters Group UK New Artist of the Year Award by such incredible artists, collectors and gallerists.’’
