Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze (b. 1982 in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria) is a Brooklyn-based artist of Nigerian descent and British upbringing whose creative practices and processes focus on producing mixed media, paper-based drawings and works. Her art draws inspiration from photography, textiles, architecture and print-making. For amanze, ‘[paper as a] medium is classic. It’s universal. It’s as old as time, older even than written language. But at the same time, it’s constantly reinventing itself and doing away with former parameters of what it could or could not be’ (amanze, r., Artsy, n.d.), this allows her works to be intricately and beautifully crafted whilst simultaneously permitting her to explore space as a flexible, non-static construct. The malleability of paper facilitates the artistic freedom to redefine and inform existing and new artistic paradigms and investigate the cross-cultural communicative powers of drawing. In her approach to art, amanze’s body of work establishes an introspective dialogue and personal quest in an attempt to materialise her experience of displacement and dislocation. The motifs and symbols of amanze’s works create non-linear narratives which articulate and delve into ideas surrounding free play as an act of revolution and post-colonial, non-nationalism as an accepted norm in western societies. Nigerian-born, and raised in the United Kingdom, amanze relocated to the United States to study a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. She graduated summa cum laude and continued her academic career obtaining a Masters degree in Fine Art from the respected Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Recognised for her academic excellence, in 2012-2013, amanze was the recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholars award and was hosted by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Currently, amanze resides in Brooklyn and is the artist-in-residence at the Queens Museum in New York. She regularly exhibits her artworks both nationally and internationally at galleries in New York, London, Johannesburg and Lagos.
