NIGERIAN JUNK ARTIST SPECIALIZES IN PLASTIC BAG TAPESTRIES

IFY ANYAEJI TRANSFORMS PLASTIC TRASH INTO AMAZING ART

By margaretta wa gacheru. (Published Sept. 6, 2013) in Business Daily

Trash and waste products of all kinds have been common material used by Kenyan artists for the longest time. It may have begun when Wakamba carvers picked up tree branches, broken during rainstorms, and transformed them into so called curios in the early part of last century. The catalogue of Kenyan artists who’ve used trash and found objects to create incredible works of art is practically endless and grows by the hour. Everyone from Kioko Mwitiki, Irene Wanjiru, Alex Wainainaand Dennis Muraguri to Dickens Otieno, Cyrus Ng’ang’a, Patricia Njeri and Nani Croze are just of few of those who collect materials that others consider discard-ableand use them to create wonderful works of art. Kenyan artists have been known to use everything from old socks, sweaters and broken zips to beer bottles, cans and tops to tire wire (what Gor Soudan calls ‘protest wire), spark plugs and even old computer monitors! In fact, the topic of ‘junk art’ is one of the themes of my new book Creating Contemporary Kenyan Art which was recently published by Lambert Publishers. But not many Kenyans have picked up on the artistic use of the plastic bags that have proliferated and can be seen on sundry roadsides as well as in shopping centres. But ever since the Nigerian artist Ifeoma (“Ify”) Anyaeji arrived in Kenya to do an art residency at the GoDown Art Centre, people have been dropping off their plastic bags for this amazing Benin-based artist to use in her giant tapestries and functional furniture which will be on display from September 17th when her solo exhibition opens at Alliance Francaise. Coincidentally in Kenya just as Nigeria is celebrating its 50 years of Independence, Ify was brought here by the Nigerian arts consultant Tosin Onila-Eve Rotimi who just curated Gor Soudan’s Something from Nothing exhibition currently up at the Nairobi National Museum.. But Ifysays she is not ‘recycling’her plastic bags, meaning she is not changing their chemical composition. She prefers to call her creative process ‘upcycling’ when she transforms plastic bags into incredible tapestries and functional art (including comfortable couches, tables and chairs) most of which she will also show later this year in New York City at an up-scale gallery owned by the Nigerian impresario, Skoto Aghahowa. When I met Ify at the GoDown recently, she was working with several young women from the Ethnic Art studio (Winnie, Rinea and Eunice) who were helping her to make ‘yarn’ out of plastic bags. Employing a traditional Nigerian technique of hair styling called ‘threading’, Ify came up with an ingenious way of covering plastic strips with multi-coloured thread, creating a rope-like yarn which she then uses to weave, stitch or layer into stunning abstract—and often three-dimensional -- designs. Her assistants also help her to create plastic ‘bubblies’ as she calls the mini- balls that shestitches into chicken wire to create a whole other sort of sculpture and wall hanging. She also uses her bubbly mesh to upholster her couches and chairs. Surprisingly itis incredibly comfortable! Currently a Ford Foundation fellow working out of Washington University in St. Louis, USA, Ify is otherwise to be found at the University of Benin where she has been an assistant lecturer in fine art for the last seven years. OoB is also where she went for her first two university degrees. Painting and drawing since she was a child, Ify had originally set out to be, of all things, an accountant. But fate would have it that numbers were not her forte; fine art was and continues to be. Hired straight out of school to teach painting at UoB, Ify’s first foray into using plastic was an experiment she tried while in Benin, using 4” by 4” water sachets as a sort of canvas on which she would first stitch together into large surfaces and then paint. But once she won the Ford fellowship and went to the US, she had to adapt both her medium and her technique. “There were no plastic water sachets in St. Louis so i had to resort to plastic bags,” said Ify who also had to shift her technique since the bags had a different texture and couldn’t absorb oil or acrylic paint. So since her style was experimental, inventive, Ify made the shift from painting to sculpting, stitching, weaving and stacking her colourful plastic yarns. The result is an ingenious new style of ‘upcycling’ plastic to create remarkable sculptures, tapestries and functional art that may not solve the planet’s problem of plastic debris; but also show how to transform ugly junk into incredible works of art.