nkiruka oparah (they/them) is an artist and designer currently based in Oakland, CA. They work fluidly across mediums to create works on paper, installations, wearables, and performances that explore the poetics of collage. Their installation practice draws on cultural memory and utilizes the histories of found and recycled materials, as well as the image detritus of an internet in flux to agitate ideas of time, progress, identity, and spirit. Using fragmented images, experimental printmaking techniques, and looping gifs, they explore an interest in expanding traditional self-portraiture into multi-dimensional spaces.

Their recent work considers how experiences of longing and the wisdom of grief can be transmitted through distortions of the Modernist grid to create new models for belonging.

oparah’s works have been exhibited locally and internationally at 副本 INSTANCE, Shanghai 2021, Museum Ludwig, Cologne 2020, at La Box, Bourges France, 2019, LAND AND SEA, Oakland, CA in 2018. They hold an MFA from California College of the Arts.

SEE(d) experienced a deep dive with nkiruka on Sunday, March 26, 2023 learning about their fluid practice, which spans across multiple mediums and explores the dimensions of consciousness and memory in our hyper-mediated era.