Imo Nse Imeh: Monuments to Our Skies

During the summer of 2020—amid the pandemic, lockdowns, and widespread displays of racially motivated violence that appeared on screens across the United States—artist Imo Nse Imeh was deeply engaged with questions of faith, trust, belief, and redemption, particularly in the context of Black communities. Monuments to Our Skies is the result.

Each canvas in this series offers a unique combination of material and form. For Imeh, the choice of materials is crucial, as it influences both the process and the level of control he can exert. He often begins with India and acrylic inks, applying them to the unstretched canvas in dynamically more and less controlled sweeps of color that can be both additive and destructive. He then uses charcoal and graphite, simple yet powerful materials that can tell complex stories and exhibit an immediacy unique to drawing and draftsmanship.

From these materials, Imeh creates both figures and what he calls “bio forms”: structures and patterns from which the figures emerge and into which they can disintegrate. He does not view the bio forms as merely abstract; they are a direct product of his drawing process, making them concrete and real. As he puts it, they are “elements of things that are alive.” Like the bio forms, the figures are more than representations or abstractions; they are ways of seeing the mind at work, channeling memory and thought through the actions of the artist’s hand and eye.

Imo Nse Imeh is a Nigerian American visual artist and scholar of African Diaspora art whose work explores historical and philosophical issues around the Black body and cultural identity. He is a professor of art and art history at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. Imeh has made contributions to the visual arts discourse through publications, lectures, exhibitions, and thought-provoking studio art projects that interrogate the ways Black bodies are imagined, ritualized, and transformed.