About Imo
Imo Nse Imeh is a doctoral candidate at Yale University where he is studying the History of African Art. His parents hail from Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Although he is American-born, Imo’s Ibibio heritage has become a central point of reference and contemplation, in both his art and scholarship. Imo is also a proud brother of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
During his undergraduate education at Columbia University, Imo was sponsored by the NIKE Corporation through the Jackie Robinson Scholarship Foundation as well as the One Hundred Black Men Foundation Scholarship. At Columbia, Imo excelled in the Art History Department and was honored with the inaugural Senior Thesis Prize for his essay “A New Vision: Exploring the extent to which black art should be considered essentially on political grounds.” This work was based on Imo’s extensive interview with the internationally celebrated African American artist Whitfield Lovell, who was recently honored with the prestigious MacArthur Genius Award. Imo graduated with departmental honors in Art History and was named a Columbia University Kluge Scholar.
Soon afterward, Imo was selected as a curatorial intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the department of Modern Art. There, he worked closely with curators to organize the exhibition, African-American Artists, 1929-1945. Since then, Imo has continued to investigate important art historical questions, especially those concerning the African Diaspora.
At Yale University, Imo is currently researching the art of southeast Nigeria, specifically in the area of women’s initiation ceremonies in Ibibioland. His forthcoming dissertation, Daughters of Seclusion: The Ibibio Aesthetic in the Staging of a Female Icon, investigates the traditional Ibibio institution of women’s aesthetics and scholarship known as mbopo. While working on his doctorate Imo continues to paint and draw. Most recently, his inaugural solo exhibition Anatomy of Beauty: Time. Transformation. Trauma. was hosted by Westfield State College in Massachusetts. He has also participated in a number of group exhibitions including Surrealist Fusion at White Space Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut and Blacker Than Thou at the Taller Boricua Gallery in New York City. Imo’s work has also been featured in shows at the Rush Arts Gallery, Amy Ruth’s Gallery, Simmons Gallery, the West Side Arts Coalition Gallery, the Post Scrypt Gallery at Columbia University and the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University. Recently Imo contributed to an exhibition hosted by Yale University that was constructed in conjunction with a conference on Panafricanism. Additionally, his painting Continuity was displayed at the 2006 Jackie Robinson Foundation Annual Awards Ceremony, hosted by Bill Cosby and attended by numerous dignitaries including the foundation’s founder, the honorable Rachel Robinson, whose art collection includes one of Imo’s beautiful drawings.
In the Blacker Than Thou exhibition Imo unveiled what he calls his “greatest acrylic undertaking:” an eight-foot tall, massive, visual and textual rhapsody titled Guardian: Self-Portrait with Dividing Sentinels. Although Imo considers this image a “self-portrait,” he also suggests that Guardian be considered by a number of varying artistic and philosophical angles. Guardian is the result of Imo’s artistic prowess working in concert with his desire to engage his Nigerian cultural ties and traditions. This painting is significant because it marks the commencement of the dramatic fusion between Imo’s scholastic endeavors in Ibibio aesthetic philosophy and his unique creations. Following Guardian, an entire series of Imo’s paintings, drawings, and assemblages now pointedly attempt to initiate discussion about Africa, legacy, diaspora, and beauty.
Imo is keenly aware of his relevance as both art historian and artist. He is currently developing his scholastic and artistic projects simultaneously, “allowing each to converse with the other,” he says. He is fascinated by the human form, especially the contrasting duality of the body’s inherent fragility and strength. This has caused him to rethink the body with respect to the African Diaspora. His rendered bodies, which he often depicts as dividing into twos and threes, being torn apart, or fusing together with other bodies and forms, are a means for him to discuss the complexities of race, gender, and identity construction among people of African descent.
Links
→ Imo Nse Imeh, Artist Statement