Soull & Dynasty Ogun

"A name is much more than a name, and the incomparable identical twins Soull and Dynasty transcend all expectations within their perennial omnipresence of creativity—jewelry and clothing are their inspired conduits. They personify the talent of a genius by providing us access into their vast universe to transform our lifestyles holistically. Their expiration is deeply rooted in the sciences, numerology, religion, and mythology. Journeying through their work allows you to unapologetically and authentically become the fairytale version of yourself—which, in our complex world, is enlightened..."

—Mickalene Thomas

Identical twins and collaborators Soull & Dynasty Ogun were born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where they both still live and work. Inspired by their rich lineage of Nigerian and Dominican, West Indies/Antilles descent, Soull & Dynasty transmute their varied surrounding cultures by making unique jewelry, textiles, and amulets.

K.O.D.E. (Keys Open Doors Everywhere), their first exhibition with Salon 94 Design in our brick room gallery, includes their distinctive jewelry, tapestries, and candelabras, alongside new pendant sculptures of imagined astral beings and helmets in scrap gold—including one adorning sculptor Karon Davis’s Eros Dancer in the gallery’s third-floor Wood Room.

Soull & Dynasty are both autodidactic artisans: Soull works in metal-forging, casting, carving, cutting, inlaying jewelry, and small sculpture, while Dynasty assembles, cuts, and sews textile to make tapestries and garments. After retooling and reimagining vintage clothes and antique jewelry, and bejeweling every found surface, the sisters ultimately merged their practices in 2017 to develop L’enchanteur, their design/thought incubator. Their collaborative works are heirlooms to be imbued with new magic, inspired by the sciences, color theory, numerology, religion, mythology, and fairytales.

Soull & Dynasty's new series draws from their shared interest in the celestial and immortal worlds, and represents what happens to a soul after death by presenting the tools, talismans, symbols, and ideas through which passings (such as reincarnation) are materialized. Each of the symbols in their cosmology is represented by various stages of development: some extraterrestrial beings are crafted without a face, while others in the process of developing a soul manifest as transparent or translucent faces with eyes. Scarred arms stretched out reaching forth and pulling back the veils, with hands gripping at constructs of multiple dimensions and realities, representing the acquired experience learned throughout lifetimes and a reminder of the quest of the soul through its sentient being. The most enlightened figures have fuller faces, which serve as a screen for a matrix/code/K.O.D.E, each with unique yet universal programming.