INI ARCHIBONG
“An Object Should Communicate An Idea to the People Coming in Contact With It. It’s a Three-Dimensional Standing Piece of Poetry.”
When designers create timeless works, it is the result of an uncompromised vision, one that holds an artistic integrity involving skilled professionals and craftsmen to help execute an idea.
Designer Ini Archibong presents his first solo gallery exhibition, titled Hierophany, at Friedman Benda in New York. The stunning designs highlight four distinctive bodies of work, Vernus, Manna, Shade and Obelisk, each representing a different ethos in various chosen materials such as hand blown glass, obsidian, marble. This was integral for Archibong, who intended to push the boundaries of what each chosen material could accomplish, with his process characterized by a strong dedication to craftsmanship and to the integrity of it’s production.
I’m pleasantly surprised when I see a new material or a material used in a new way that makes me feel something that I’ve been trying to capture. The stories are already there latent in the back of my mind, but then there are the poignant moments of those stories that I’m on the lookout to illustrate. A new material means being able to tell a story I haven’t told before.
Combining his lifelong interests in global cultures, mathematics, philosophy, mythology and world religions with a passion for his own Nigerian ancestry, each object featured in the exhibition is a reflection of Archibong’s life experiences. Hierophany demonstrates the dualities inherent to Archibong’s practice: past and future, personal and collective, opacity and transparency, opposition and reconciliation, local and global, intangible and physical. His works are intended to invite participation and provoke a multi-sensorial experience from the user, serving as an entry point for further exploration.
My goal with each piece is to exalt a single universal and spiritually powerful concept, which can stand as a microcosmic example of the entirety of the universe’s spiritual essence.
HIEROPHANY (from Greek hiero-, "sacred," and phainein, "to show") is a physical manifestation of the sacred or the spiritual.
INI ARCHIBONG
HIEROPHANY
OCT 7 – NOV 2, 2021
Friedman Benda, NYC