Njideka Akunyili Crosby: I Refuse to be Invisible

This exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art is the first survey of work by Njideka Akunyili Crosby.

In her large scale works that comprise both painting and collage Akunyili Crosby speaks of navigating life as an African in America. The exhibition will feature 15 large-scale, new and recent mixed-media works from 2010 to 2015 comprise both painting and collage, and speak to navigating life as an African in America. With an emphasis on the figure in familial, domestic settings, the artist creates compositions that appear as views into everyday life; yet, upon closer observation, are careful constructions that are subtly subversive.

Akunyili Crosby’s intensive process—which includes studies of poses assumed by her and her family, references to the history of Western Art, illustrations from Nigerian magazines, and the transfer of images by hand—creates layers of information and visual messages that speak to her personal history and of a generation creating new traditions.

A publication providing the first in-depth examination of Akunyili Crosby’s oeuvre will accompany the RAW exhibition.

About Njideka Akunyili Crosby

Born in Enugu, Nigeria, Akunyili Crosby spent her formative years in Nigeria before traveling to the United States in 1999 to continue her education. She attended Swarthmore College, earning a BA degree with Honors in Biology and Studio Art. Deciding against a medical career, the chosen path of her parents and siblings, Akunyili Crosby pursued painting, completing a Post-Baccalaureate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006 before earning her MFA degree from Yale University in 2011. She is the recipient of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize in 2015 and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s James Dicke Contemporary Art Prize in 2014.

Akunyili Crosby’s work has been exhibited in: Hammer Projects: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, 2015-16, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (solo exhibition); Njideka Akunyili Crosby: The Beautyful Ones, 2015, Art + Practice, Los Angeles (solo exhibition); Surround Audience, 2015 New Museum Triennial, New Museum, NY; Forces in Nature,2015, curated by Hilton Als, Victoria Miro Gallery, London; Draped Down, 2014, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Bronx Calling: The Second Bronx Biennial, 2013, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Bronx, NY;Jump Cut, 2013, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY; and Primary Sources, 2012, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.

Akunyili Crosby received her BA with honors in 2004 from Swarthmore College before completing a Post-Baccalaureate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006. She earned her MFA in 2011 from Yale University. This presentation of 15 paintings will be Akunyili Crosby’s premiere solo exhibition at a museum.

This will be the fifth RAW -Recognition of Art by Women- exhibition made possible by the Leonard and Sophie Davis/MLDauray Arts Initiative.
norton.org