Nyugen E. Smith
b. 1976, Jersey City, NJ; lives and works in Jersey City, NJ
Nyugen E. Smith is an artist and performer who explores the historical and contemporary conditions of the global African diaspora. Since 2005, he has been working on Bundlehouse, an expansive and multidisciplinary project that was first inspired by the architecture of refugee camps. Smith’s BundlehouseFS Mini sculptures are composed of accumulated found objects and were born from the artist’s practice of constructing larger, ephemeral structures. In addition to recalling temporary architecture, they also reference nkisi, powerful sculptural objects from Central Africa whose spirit is activated through a process of accretion. The banner-like Bundlehouse Borderlines No. 6 ( _emembe_ ) is from a larger series of paintings which explore both real and (re)imagined maps of the Caribbean islands. In the case of_emembe_,the image reflects the island of Ayti, modern-day Hispaniola, turned 90 degrees.
