Artist Feature / 03
Curator Lisa Slominski explores the multifaceted practice of Nnena Kalu, an artist with ActionSpace, London.
Nnena Kalu, Untitled (vortex drawing), 2018/19, crayon, pastel, pencil on paper, 162 x 101 cm. Courtesy the artist, ActionSpace and Slominski Projects,
Nnena Kalu’s practice has two distinctive but dialectical strands. Her temporal, often durational, sculptural installations and her vortex drawings. Both use physical and instinctual repetitive motions and are at once elaborate but simple, expressive but restrained. In her drawings, the performative rhythm is documented by circular layers of pen, pencil, and ink. In one aspect, her drawings are visually abstract, in another, they evoke the body through the scale of spherical marks relating to Kalu’s own body and arm length.
Kalu’s sculptural discipline has a more symphonic quality involving a myriad of materials, architectural elements, smaller sculptural ‘cocoons’ (which like percussionists during a symphony provide a continual rhythm in many of the installations), and most vital, time. A stage allowing her installations to reach their crescendos. These materials, continually sourced and often donated, include old VHS tapes, yarn, string, cardboard, and various adhesive tapes. Architectural elements provide the foundation for Kalu’s sculptures to form. For Spring Syllabus at J Hammond Projects (2018), it was an existing pillar in the gallery space. For her Glasgow International installation Project Ability (2018) and Studio Voltaire’s elsewhere commission (2020) they provided a built wooden substrate for commencement. As part of her studio practice, Kalu creates smaller wrapped pod-like forms, binding paper, plastic, and fabrics together with yarn and tape. These ‘cocoons’ are repurposed over and over again.
Nnena Kalu with ‘cocoons’ 2018. Courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
Also integral to Kalu’s work is her relationship with artist facilitator, Charlotte Hollinshead. Kalu, who is autistic and limited verbally, has been developing her practice with ActionSpace - a studio for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Kalu and Hollinshead have been working together at ActionSpace since 1999. Onsite for installations, Hollinshead is with Kalu offering support and assistance with materials. Hollinshead and ActionSpace encourage Kalu’s personal creative decisions and artistic vision, while also working to further develop her professional and exhibition opportunities.
From the tactility and scale to the colourful abstract quality of her sculptures, Kalu draws a strong connection to other female sculptors such as Karla Black, Sheila Hicks, and Shinique Smith. Practical, poetic, and progressive, the inherent use of donated or unused material, as well as, repurposing sculptural elements is also something Kalu shares with British sculptor Phyllida Barlow. Likewise, Barlow’s conviction that abstraction holds the potential to address identity - pointing to a feminine voice or something more personal - feels poignant looking at Kalu’s body of work.
Karla Black stated the “most important thing about the work is that it prioritizes material experience over language as a way to learn about and understand the world." This statement seems to really resonate with Kalu’s practice. In many ways, Nnena Kalu’s actions are the material - the tangible components are just a part of the process so that her actions can be recorded physically and visually.
Nnena Kalu installation view for elsewhere commission. Courtesy of the artist and Studio Voltaire.
Recent exhibitions include Fair Vanity, Summertime, Brooklyn (2020); elsewhere, Studio Voltaire commission at 50 Burlington St, London (2020); Nnena Kalu: Wrapping, Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2019); TUBE LINES, Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, London (2019); Spectrum Arts Prize, Saatchi Gallery, London (2018); Glasgow International, Project Ability, Glasgow (2018); Spring Syllabus, J Hammond Projects, London (2018); Watch This Space, Wandsworth Arts Fringe, London (2017); Radical Craft: Alternative Ways of Making, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (2017); Capharnaum, Theatre de Liege, Le Madmusee, Liege (2016); Studio Voltaire OPEN, Selected by Cory Arcangel and Hanne Mugaas, Studio Voltaire, London (2015); Dizziness of Freedom, Bermondsey Project, London (2014); The Trouble with Painting Today, Pump House Gallery, London (2014); Epiphanies! Secrets of Outsider Art, St Pancras Hospital, London (2014); Side by Side, Southbank Centre, London (2013); SV12 Member’s Show, Selected by Jenni Lomax and Mike Nelson, Studio Voltaire, London (2012).
Lisa Slominski is an American curator, writer and cultural worker based in east London. She is a co-founder of Art et al. and directs the consultancy and curatorial platform - Slominski Projects.
Nnena Kalu is an artist supported by the London-based studio ActionSpace.
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© Images copyright the artist unless otherwise stated.
Banner image: Nnena Kalu, Untitled (vortex drawing), 2018/19, crayon, pastel, pencil on paper, 162 x 101 cm.