Funlola Coker
fun/she/they
Instagram: @funlolacoker. www.funlolacoker.com
Sunday (2021-ongoing)
Steel
An altar to the hair that I shed. A meditation.
Sundays are sacred.
Sundays are the days that we get to know ourselves
we get to know each other
every lost curl is saved for the altar
Sundays are overwhelming,
Sundays are beautiful
Sundays are for us.
Artist Statement
As the broader umbrella of my work, Slippery Space|s is a convergence of storytelling, language and writing, craft, and historical research. It is an investigation of liminality through the lens of Yoruba cosmology and Africanfuturism. Within it, I build immersive installations of objects and sculptures that coordinate with original autobiographical short stories, prose, and poetry.
In the Yoruba tradition, I tell stories through craft. Embracing the literary style of biomythography, I craft stories of slippery, liminal spaces – dream-like and half-remembered, yet sacred. Through a diasporic lens, I consider how objects can transport the mind through time on a wave of nostalgia. For me, the act of chiseling, carving, and braiding are connected to memory. When contextualized into familiar forms or settings, they serve as portals. I explore personal and collective histories in order to understand how they hold power over us.
Artist Bio
Funlola Coker is a sculptor from Lagos, Nigeria. Funlola’s work follows research threads in the realm of recollection, imagination, and the surreal. Embracing the literary style of biomythography, Funlola builds narrative sculptures that call on nostalgic memories and moments of the mundane held dear. Liminal spaces are explored in the context of Yoruba cosmology and Africanfuturism. Using materials and techniques based in craft, these sculptures suggest dream-like and half-remembered spaces, yet sacred.
Coker’s work has been exhibited at the Fuller Craft Museum, TONE Gallery, the National Ornamental Metal Museum, including a solo exhibition at Brooklyn Metal Works. Collections include Brooklyn Metal Works and the National Ornamental Metal Museum. Coker has received awards such as the Thayer Fellowship from the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government (2022), the Society of Arts and Crafts Craft Innovation Jumpstarter Award (2023). Coker holds an MFA in Studio Art from the State University of New York at New Paltz.