Lawson Oyekan is a ceramist sculptor who sculpts with clay. Oyekan often uses clay to explore histories connected with land by excavating and working site-specific matter. He makes monumental ceramic installations and smaller vessel-like pieces. A signature feature within his ceramic works are pierced walls which add to the depth and texture by creating passages for air and light. Gestural marks echo calligraphic inscriptions inspired by poetry in Yoruba and English. An integral part of Oyekan’s practice is to convey his thoughts on the beauty and power of nature through its transformation and destruction.
The sculptor’s work is inspired by the very material that creates life, clay. In this, the material is imbued with historical, mythological and sacred meaning. Ore in Edy-Rose, Known is made from clay extracted from the Nécropole nationale de La Fontenelle, a military cemetery near Oyekan’s studio in the Vosges Mountains, France. Oyekan processes waste earth from the site with water from a local river to extract a reddish clay which holds traces of the metal debris deposited in the ground when the area was a battleground during the First World War. The vessel’s swirling ‘rose’ shape refers to the eddies that form when a fast-flowing river meets an obstacle and briefly flows back on itself. For Oyekan this motif is a metaphor for human experience.
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) is dedicated to collecting a range of works by diverse artists, particularly those who tell stories of their own personal histories. Oyekan’s work joins pieces by many of his contemporaries in the MIMA Collection. The work builds on MIMA’s collection of sculptural ceramics and works that engage with clay to develop social, conceptual and performative works. It connects with thematic strands in the collection around land and ecologies, migration and hybrid cultures.
