Kambui Olujimi (CRF 2015) has been named a 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellow. Olujimi is a visual artist, designer, and filmmaker, born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Olujimi’s work challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as “inevitabilities.” This pursuit takes shape through interdisciplinary bodies of work spanning sculpture, installation, photography, writing, textile, video, and performance.
“Through my practice, I excavate the language and aesthetics of social, historical, and cultural conventions and bring them out of the world of the implicit. Once given gravity, weight, and shape, it becomes possible to reveal their incongruities and their illusory nature.”
Olujimi is one of the inaugural recipients of the new Joan Mitchell Fellowship, which annually awards 15 artists working in painting and sculpture. Launched in February 2021, the new Fellowship program re-envisions and enhances the impact of the earlier Painters & Sculptors Grants by significantly increasing the financial award and expanding the professional development offerings to best support working artists. Learn more about the prize and other Fellows here.
Photo by Antony Alvarez