Pushing the imagination of Imagery.
BIO
Chukwudumebi ‘Chuks’ Amadi-Emina is a Nigerian (Igbo & Yoruba) American contemporary photographer, digital & video artist, currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. Chuks has a BFA in photography and graphic design and an MFA in photographic and electronic media from the Maryland institute College of Art. Using Photography, collage/montage theory and digital editing and painting skills and techniques, Chuks tells stories that revolve around the duality of perspectives and experiences of being an individual raised in Africa (Nigeria specifically), as well as being a black individual in America through the portraiture.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Using photographic narratives, embedded with performance & ritual, Chuks reveals moments of those whose entireties are a result of the fusion of both their African-ness and blackness. Through portraiture photography (of both himself and others), and the use of digital manipulation and painting; collage/montage theory, storytelling, and world building, he creates environments around his subjects that interweaves pan-African perspective, effects and spirituality into western mythologies, allegories, and misconceptions of the black body.
Chuks adorns his subjects with African based or/and afro centric like artifacts or objects, that are based on real objects or ones from his imagination. The process of adornment, a termed created by Chuks, is called Digitization of an Ori. A term by the Yoruba tribe, Ifa, used to describe the vessel that can process conscious thought. A new being/deity emerges from this process, which is referred to as an Orisha. A term used to describe deities in Yoruba land, whom are ultimately part of the same whole. Chuks sees the black body as a conduit of truth to self, and truth of space. He not only navigates his personal intimate moments with blackness, but also challenges the way it is perceived.