Samuel Nnorom: Interwoven Narratives

Galerie Revel presents Interwoven Narratives, the first solo of the internationally acclaimed and multi-award-winning artist Samuel Nnorom in France. Marking a significant milestone in Samuel Nnorom’s artistic journey in France, Interwoven Narratives highlights the artist’s most recent creations until March 24th 2024.

Deployed in the gallery’s spacious contemporary space, the exhibition unveils an array of never-before-seen pieces and invites exploration of the corpus through the lens of Edouard Glissant’s concept of the Tout-Monde (as the Whole-World). Theorized by the French poet, novelist and philosopher in 1997, the concept encapsulates the vision of a global and interconnected world, where cultures, identities and experiences converge to form a unified whole.

Born in 1990 in Abia State (Nigeria), Samuel Nnorom places sewing, cutting, and tying – skills inherited from his mother – Ankara fabric at the very center of his work. Deeply rooted in West African daily life, Ankara fabric is known for its nebulous origins in Africa, thus making it a medium of choice for the artist. Recovering pre-loved scraps from local second-hand stores, Nnorom harnesses the original vibrant palette and patterns of the fabric to create abstract pieces at the crossroads of sculpture and tapestry. His large-scale pieces, climbing the walls like flourishing vines, consist of hundreds of fabric-covered bubbles, symbolizing our individual identities and collectively forming what the artist metaphorically calls a social fabric. Appearing in an illusion of perpetual motion, Nnorom’s webs act as catalysts of pareidolias: viewers may discern landscapes, urban structures, organic cells, or endless mazes – in all cases, something interconnected. Above all, the artist creates pieces as magnifying mirrors of our contemporary issues, delving deeply into the politics of today’s globalized society.

Building upon Nnorom’s idea of a social fabric, Interwoven Narratives seeks to interlace the conceptual insights of the young Nigerian artist with the philosophical underpinnings of Edouard Glissant’s Tout-Monde. Glissant’s ode to multiplicity, interdependence and co-existence is brilliantly embodied by Samuel Nnorom abstract sculptures: an ever-evolving network where languages, cultures, experiences, narratives, journeys, and encounters intricately entwine to shape a mesmerizing web of interconnected relations.

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