Condition make crayfish bend

kó is pleased to present Condition Make Crayfish Bend, the second solo exhibition at the gallery of Ngozi-Omeje Ezema. 

Ngozi-Omeje Ezema (b. 1979, Nsukka, Nigeria) creates sculptural installations composed of hundreds of suspended terracotta fragments that coalesce into amorphous vessel-like forms. Ezema’s practice reconsiders inherited traditions of pottery, transforming the vessel from an object historically tied to domestic and utilitarian function into a site symbolizing memory, embodiment, and human experience.

Ezema works with fire clay and coal-shell excavated from the Iva Valley coal mines in Enugu, incorporating materials embedded with the industrial and environmental histories of southeastern Nigeria. Individual ceramic elements are connected with translucent fishing wire and suspended as free-floating or wall-mounted installations that appear at once fragile and monumental. Her terracotta fragments are fired at high temperatures using reduction firing techniques, producing surfaces marked by tonal variation. Drawing on the forms of vessels, leaves, and the material presence of the earth itself, Ezema explores the body as a physical and symbolic container. In pottery, vessels have traditionally been described with personifying terms to identify their anatomy, such as mouth, neck, shoulder, belly, or foot. Informed by biblical conceptions of human beings as vessels, Ezema extends these metaphors as symbols of spiritual containment. 

Using her personal experiences as a point of departure, her work addresses issues relating to identity, family, and womanhood. The burdens that women bear in relationships, their physical attributes as well as experiences that define their position in society are symbolically wrapped around the physical and functional attributes of a vase. For the artist, the leaf motif represents a state of being, a transient element whose materiality symbolically dramatizes rites of passage. As Ezema explains, “The leaf represents aspects of tenderness in women that is often taken for granted. The leaf is equally suggestive of the long suffering that women undergo in relationships. When you look at the colour of the leaves in my work, they give the impression that the leaves have dried, yet they still retain their beauty”.

Central to Ezema’s practice is a process of refinement, rupture, and reconfiguration. Carefully formed vessels are broken apart and reassembled into suspended installations that reconsider the physical structure and symbolic function of ceramics. Fragments are meticulously positioned in shifting arrangements that transform solid walls of pottery into floating forms, where acts of breaking become generative rather than destructive. The exhibition’s title, Condition Make Crayfish Bend, speaks to the virtues and forms of resilience that emerge through adversity. Referencing a well-known proverbial expression in Nigeria, the title reflects on adaptation as a strategy of survival and a source of strength. Working from Nsukka, Ezema draws inspiration from the region’s spoken idioms and enduring craft traditions, considering how cultural memory and communal knowledge are carried through material forms.

Source: Ko Artspace Website