Adaesi Ukairo
Adaesi Ukairo is a metalsmith making sculptural forms from copper and brass. Using hammers and forming stakes she moulds and shapes instinctively, engaging the metal’s unique properties of malleability and strength to create distinct, highly textured and patinated pieces. These pieces express in tangible form the fluid movement of energy.
Her collections, Undule, Crush, Phlat and Miri are abstract explorations, expressing differing pathways, from the predetermined form of Phlat, to the free flowing forms of Undule, all allow space for individual interpretation.
Adaesi is of mixed heritage and spent a formative part of her childhood in the southeast of Nigeria, absorbing and learning from the craft skills of the women in her village. Her heritage and range of experiences in her upbringing, inform her designs and connection to the materials she utilises. The physicality of the hammering, the rhythm, the marking, the sound of metal on metal, of metal on wood, the feel and texture of the material, the colour and the ensuing patination express her thoughts in the form of a physical language.
Her pieces emerge over time, containing a sense of balance in one single harmonious form.
She trained as a Silversmith and Jeweller at London Metropolitan University.
Program
Diaspora artists whose work focuses on themes and narratives that are rooted in or responding to West African cultural values and ideas. Each artist will give a brief presentation of […]
Diaspora artists whose work focuses on themes and narratives that are rooted in or responding to West African cultural values and ideas. Each artist will give a brief presentation of […]