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Ala In The Highest II, 2021

Nneka Osueke

Oil paint, 24-karat gold, glass beads and fabric on canvas

W50H60D5 cm

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Nneka OsuekeOffered by Nneka Osueke
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£1,277.52
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Artist

About Nneka Osueke

I have this incessant need to tell the world the Truth about Africans and the diaspora.

As a West African woman born and raised in America, I experienced an identity crisis early on in life: I was torn between being both Black American and Nigerian. These groups, vastly different in culture in many ways and so misunderstood by one another, tugged at me on both ends. Worn out from this push and pull, I went searching, and in the most beautiful, eye-opening ways, I found the history everybody had missed out on. I found out there wasn't much separation between my bloodline and my birthplace.

Artwork

About this artwork

The goddess Ala is the most powerful deity in the Igbo Pantheon. Ruler of the earth, overseer of morality and fertility, she masterfully embodies the opposites: both logical and creative, gracefully feminine and astutely masculine, nurturing and calculating, fluid and grounded. Ala is represented by the crescent moon, and the sacred python is her messenger. It is said that she is there to watch over a child as it develops within the mother, and she is the receiver of those who have passed, holding all the ancestors in her womb.

The golden symbols on Ala’s crown are from studies of the ancient script of Nsibidi, a secret writing system used in Igboland by those of high authority and power, and mostly by the Ekpe Leopard Secret Society. They read, "Moon, woman, energy." A woman like the moon, a divine feminine energy.
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