Textile Histories

about Victoria Udondian

Drawing from her experiences growing up in Nigeria, Victoria Udondian engages with West African textiles and repurposed Western material to investigate how fundamental changes in fabric can affect one’s perception of his or her identity, and ultimately a nation’s psyche. Before studying art, she trained as a tailor and fashion designer. Her work is driven by her interest in textiles and the potential for clothing to shape identity, informed by the histories and tacit meanings embedded in everyday materials.

Victoria received an MFA from Columbia University in New York City and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, US in 2016. Her works have been exhibited internationally at Nigerian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennial-An Excerpt, New York, Art 14 London Art Fair, Fondazione di Venezie, Venice, Italy, and more.

“I am not sure where my interest really emanated from, but have realised that the scope of meaning associated with cloth, textiles is so wide, mostly in Africa where designs and patterns on cloths are not mere decorations but strong means of communication.

Sonya Clark, an impressive fibre artist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States, succinctly averred that ‘cloth is to the Africans what monuments are to Westerners’. Lately I am beginning to create paintings in context related to textile histories“.