Recently, the Elmhurst Art Museum in Chicago’s western suburbs hosted an exhibition by internationally celebrated artist Nnenna Okore. Raised in a small town in Nigeria, Okore is heavily influenced by both the rural town in which she spent her younger years in Nigeria and the urban landscapes of Chicago where she currently resides.
Using discarded materials such as twine, burlap and newspapers, she makes large-scale installations which come across as free-flowing forms floating in space. Meant to explore the beauty to be found within discarded and decaying objects… we’ll never look at twine, burlap and newspapers in the same way again!