The Phillips Collection is marking its 100th anniversary with a new graphic installation by D.C. based artist Victor Ekpuk. FOX 5's Gwen Tolbart spoke to the artist about his work, which was inspired by ancient Nigerian script.

By Janine A. Sytsma

African Arts, Winter 2021, Vol. 54, No. 4, pg. 38-51

Ekpuk’s scribbling from the mid-1990s similarly oscillates between transparency and secrecy. Some signs may be familiar to those with a basic knowledge of nsibidi, other African ideographic systems, Nigerian current affairs, and global popular culture, while others come tantalizingly close but ultimately refuse to reveal themselves and supply any specific meaning to the narrative. Indeed, even those examples with clear reference points may possess additional content known only to Ekpuk. In his scribbling-based illustrations, the combination of scripts with different levels of opaqueness accordingly generates characteristically expansive and generative analyses. The more recognizable scripts, interspersed throughout the composition, serve as signposts for discourse, revealing potential deviations from the article’s position and, according to Ekpuk (Kreamer and Purura 2007: 234), helping “to unlock the deeper layers of each composition.” The remaining signs then build on the identifiable examples and facilitate continued nonstructured contemplation of both the article along and interconnected issues, only alluded to in the text. When the illustration is experienced holistically, as Ekpuk intended, the commentary steadily accumulates, with each new layer forming connections with previous layers to generate new interrelated interpretations. (pg. 46-47)

The lobby [of the Kimpton Banneker in Washington DC] also features an abstract mural by Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk in addition to work from Aziza Claudia Gibson-Hunter, a co-founding member of Black Artists of DC.

Ekpuk, a Nigerian American artist, painted a mural for a new gallery, Arts of Global Africa, in March 2017. His art is inspired by nsibidi, a sacred means of communication among male secret societies in southeastern Nigeria. Evolving out of the graphic and writing systems of nsibidi, Ekpuk’s art embraces a wider spectrum of meaning to communicate universal themes.

2021-22 Sherman Fairchild Fellow Shiloah Coley speaks with Victor Ekpuk about the sociopolitical signs and symbols in his centennial commission.

The Phillips Collection presents bold, contemporary site-specific commissions by DC-based artists Wesley Clark, Nekisha Durrett, and Victor Ekpuk.