Chioma Ebinama

Chioma Ebinama was born in 1988 in New Jersey, USA, to Nigerian parents, and lives and works in Athens, Greece. Working primarily in watercolor on paper — often handmade khadi or cotton rag — her practice is centered on works that combine an interest in drawing and visual narrative with an engagement with animism, mythology, and precolonial philosophies as spaces for articulating modes of freedom outside Western social paradigms. Raised in the United States by Nigerian Christian immigrants, Ebinama is drawn to the aesthetic of formalized religion for its capacity to celebrate inner life, and her imagery draws on West African cosmology, folk art traditions of the global South, and the visual languages of Eastern spiritual traditions.

Ebinama's works on paper are populated by hybrid figures, anthropomorphized animals and plants, and kindly spirits rendered in layered washes of watercolor, sumi ink, and ground coffee that bloom and wrinkle with the absorption of the material. Her practice extends beyond works on paper to include ceramics, soft sculpture, wearable art, artist books, and handmade rugs produced through collaborations with weavers. She is interested in how animism and mythology present frameworks for envisioning a future — and a present — in which humanity relinquishes its central position in the tapestry of life.

Ebinama has exhibited widely, with solo presentations at Maureen Paley in London, The Breeder in Athens, Fortnight Institute in New York, Salon 94 in New York, and Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen (2024). Her work is held in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. She is represented by Maureen Paley in London and The Breeder in Athens.