Esiri Erheriene-Essi
As a visual artist I use polaroids, I transform them and put my own stamp on them. I leave enough room for the viewer to interpret, so they see things that have not been identified before.
Esiri Erheriene-Essi
Esiri Erheriene-Essi (1982, United Kingdom) is interested in polaroids, objects and documents that allow her to examine individual and shared memories. Photographs featuring people who migrated to the West from Africa, Haiti and The Caribbean in the 60s, 70s and 80s in search of a better life, serve as source material for her paintings. A photograph of a Nigerian-British family taken in East London in the 70s formed the basis for All Purpose Smile. By adding the photograph, on top of the TV, of her own mother and uncles who migrated from Nigeria to London in the 70s and newspaper clippings from the same period, Erheriene-Essi weaves a complex web of historical narratives and hidden memories.
