Artist Statement
Memory is not lost all at once. It disappears in fragments — a textile pattern no longer woven, a writing system left untranslated, a family photograph without a name on the back, a permanent public memorial about slavery dismantled. My practice is the act of gathering those fragments and insisting, through color, repetition, and pattern, that the stories I tell are cohesive.
I work with hand-painted and printed papers, salvaged cloth, found and given objects, family photographs and the visual languages of the African diaspora — adinkra symbols, African writing scripts, textile patterning — materials that carry cultural knowledge in their surfaces. In my collages, fans, paintings, and public works, I build compositions from pieces that have been separated: from their origins, from their art and cultures, from their communities, from the historical memory. The act of reassembly is a refusal of erasure.
My practice is my testimony. It has always been both personal and collective — a way of bearing witness, and of sharing, through pattern and color and fragment, the beauty and resilience of survival!
— Ife Nii-Owoo, 2026
Ife Nii-Owoo is a visual artist, graphic designer, and educator. She studied African Visual Arts at the Institute of African Studies in Accra, Ghana, and lived in London, England, and Africa for nine years. She holds a BFA from Syracuse University and a Post Graduate Certificate in Design from the London School of Communications (England). In 1978 she was a Candidate for a Masters of African Visual Arts at the Institute of African Studies in Accra, Ghana. Born and raised in Philadelphia, to which she returned in 1981, she has been part of a ground-breaking generation of African American women artists and designers pushing through barriers, part of and influenced by the nation’s Black Arts, and AfroFuturists movements.
The relevance and shaping presence of history in our lives and the power of myth and symbol—have long been essential themes for Ife, from her early days as an expatriate artist living and working in Ghana, West Africa, through her political and creative practice. In her mixed media works, she explores African American history and family traditions, incorporating meaningful artifacts, images, and symbols. She is drawn to communicating across barriers: visually and practically. She uses collage and mixed media, Adinkra and various African writing symbols and the use of repeated patterning of cloth among her materials.
Her work has been included in shows at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, African American Museum of Art and Culture, New Orleans, LA, Art + Peace Museum in Philadelphia, Moore College of Art Gallery and Community Folk Art Center, Syracuse, New York. In 2019 she created the set designs and digital installations for the Kulu Mele African Dance and Drum Ensemble premiere production of “Ogun & the People” at the Annenburg Theatre. In 2021, “Fans of Homage” her series of 20 hand crafted collaged and painted mixed media fans were on exhibit at the Philadelphia Airport.
In her site-specific public art commissions, she has created work that comes from and inspires dialogue about suppressed histories, freedom, and African American community visions of and struggles for justice. In her community engagement projects like the President’s House [2010], Free Library of Philadelphia-Logan Branch [2016]), and Elephants on the Avenue: Race, Class, and Community in Historic Germantown [2015-2017]) Ife created settings for people to encounter themselves and the past. In her President’s House commission, visitors step into the footprint of the very place where enslaved Africans “served” the first U.S. President. It is a contemplative and sacred space that transports you: and you feel a connection. Ife achieves the same live response from library-goers at her site-specific commission for the Free Library: children stand mesmerized, following the words moving through her design.
Both Ife’s graphic design and marketing practice, and her artistic practice, reflect her skill in surfacing the stories behind the stories and crafting vehicles through which people can see themselves reflected in challenging and satisfying ways. The scale and textural qualities of her public works have affinities to stage sets; they serve as backgrounds that re-contextualize visitor experience of space.
Ife Nii-Owoo has more than 30 years of professional design experience. She founded IFE designs + Associates, a full-service design firm based in Philadelphia and Atlanta, providing strategic creative thinking, graphic design, advertising, and website development to corporate and non-profit clients. The firm was committed to socially responsible design solutions that communicate to and about the needs of diverse communities—offering experience in and insight about developing creative and value-added solutions that help clients working in various emerging markets.
Ife has received numerous awards, recognitions, and grants including the New Courtland (24-25) and (22-23) Fellowship, Leeway Transformation Award (TLA) (2022) Leeway / Fleisher Residency (2020) and Art & Change Award (2008), PRAME (Public Relations, Advertising, and Marketing Excellence) Award for advertising/print ad design (2000); Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau/ Multicultural Affairs Congress (MAC) Share The Heritage Award (2001).