Efie Gallery, Dubai's contemporary art gallery specialising in artists of African origin, presents a new body of work by Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk which continues the artist’s exploration of Nsibidi, an ancient graphic communication system from south-eastern Nigeria. The exhibition of painting and sculpture, titled INTERwoven TEXTures, runs 28 September - 21 November 2023 and forms part of the inaugural Dubai Calligraphy Biennale, 1 - 31 October 2023, of which Efie Gallery is a partner.   

Based in Washington D.C., Ekpuk is celebrated for his bold and expressive paintings, drawings and sculptures that offer sociopolitical commentary while encompassing themes such as cultural memory, humanity, spirituality and identity of the African diaspora. Marking Ekpuk’s first solo show in the Middle East, the exhibition explores the diverse cultural intersections across the region and displays works developed during the artist’s residency at New York University Abu Dhabi in September, hosted in collaboration with Efie Gallery.  

A tribute to the power of dialogue and collective human experiences, Ekpuk’s new body of work sees the artist return to his use of wood, a medium that he employed regularly in the 1990s and 2000s while living in Lagos. The series of wood works sits alongside four new metal sculptures and two previously unseen works on canvas. The pieces are painted with Ekpuk’s own unique language of abstraction, made up of intricate scripture, symbols and mark-making inspired by the pictograms of Nsibidi, a secret system used by the mysterious Ekpe society and thought to date back as far as the 5th century.