Narumi Nekpenekpen

Positioned atop a pair of glossy red heart-shaped plinths, Narumi Nekpenekpen’s complex figures and creatures appear frozen in states of feeling, with their clompy feet and oversized doe-shaped eyes peeking out from a whirl of colour, shape and texture. Nekpenekpen’s work involves and processes her emotions within an alternative subconscious, where layers of porcelain and glaze represent thoughts and memories. A reflection of her often indefinable innermost conflicts, in Where You Fit In My Palm, clay becomes a translator for grief, fear, pain, hope, joy, love and desire. By projecting her emotional state onto her sculptures in both their material construction and frenzied glazing techniques, Nekpenekpen externalises the confusion of her internal world in a courageous approach to self- portraiture.

Preferring complexity over cuteness, the works remain inherently multi-dimensional both formally and materially: the artist does not prioritise any part of a sculpture over another, resulting in countless viewpoints and no trace of where each figure begins or ends. The works in Where You Fit In My Palm offer a playful language of symbology that might seem incoherent, but it’s in this abundant expression of angel wings, eyelashes, hearts, tears, chains and patterns, that we find the clearest reflection of our complicated and conflicting inner selves.

Narumi Nekpenekpen completed a BFA at California State University, Long Beach in Ceramics (2021). Recent solo exhibitions include Butter at South Willard, Los Angeles (2022); Sugar2 at Lefebvre & Fils, Paris (2022); Angels with Dirty Faces, Harkawik, New York (2021); Intra-action: Part 1 at Soft Opening, London (2021) and Toothache at Oddark, Los Angeles (2019). Past group exhibitions include On Failure at Soft Opening, London (2023); Possibility Made Real: Drawing and Clay at 12.26, Dallas (2021); Speech Sounds at Harkawik, New York (2021); HU at Real Pain Fine Arts, Los Angeles (2020); Terra Firma: Foreign Lands at Murmurs, Los Angeles (2020); Centre Of the Core at Deli Gallery, New York (2020); Speech Sounds at More Pain, New York (2020); Vivid curated by Sonya Sombreuil at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2020); The Struggle for Change at Murmurs, Los Angeles (2020); Transmissions at Insect Gallery, Los Angeles (2019).