Bio
Merryn Omotayo Alaka (b. 1997, Indianapolis, Indiana) is a Nigerian and American artist whose work spans across sculpture, installation, performance, and fiber practices. Her interdisciplinary sculptural practice incorporates metal fabrication, bronze casting, fiber, found objects, sound, and ready-made materials. Using materials and objects as a form of "allegory" or symbolism, Alaka examines the constructs and fluidness of blackness, time, memory, and history– ideas that have been shaped by societal structures and colonial histories. Alaka's creative practice explores how Black diasporic histories and traditions are preserved across generations, oftentimes working with materials and processes that serve as vessels for collective memory.
Alaka locates her work at the intersection of Black material culture, family archives, and West African mythologies. Reconstructing found and inherited objects and textiles such as Mercedes Benz car parts, Yoruba Agbadas, Nigerian leather mats, and African headrests along with stories true and imagined, she creates visual language and landscapes that make space for contemplation and meditation.
At its core, Alaka’s creative practice offers up a critical space for the sharing and exchange of narratives, histories, and futures that are in a constant state of flux.
Alaka will graduate in spring of 2025 with a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited work at institutions such as the Phoenix Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. She is the recipient of a fully funded scholarship from the School of the Art Institute and in 2022 was awarded the emerging artist grant from the Phoenix Art Museum. Additionally she was nominated for the AICAD post graduate teaching fellowship and was awarded the 2025 MASS MoCA Residency Fellowship, which was fully sponsored by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her work is currently represented by Lisa Sette Gallery.
Artist Statement
My interdisciplinary sculptural practice incorporates metal fabrication, bronze casting, fiber, found objects, sound, and ready-made materials. Mixing the synthetic and artificial with the natural and organic, I challenge western views of cultural authenticity in Black and African culture — traditions, knowledge, shared objects/materials, craft processes, and labor — many of which are hybrid identities shaped by mass production, capitalism, consumerism, cultural exchange and migration. I locate my work at the intersection of Black material culture, family archives, and West African mythologies. Reconstructing found and inherited objects and textiles such as Mercedes Benz car parts, Yoruba Agbadas, Nigerian leather mats, and African headrests along with stories true and imagined, I create visual language and landscapes that make space for contemplation and meditation.
I consider myself a conduit who channels ancestral knowledge and intuition fostering collaboration across time, between past and future generations. I’m curious about the histories of the Black diaspora and the ways they are preserved and reproduced.I use repetition of cultural motifs, objects, patterns, colors, and sounds to serve as a metaphor for the continual passing down of intergenerational imagery and stories found across the Black diaspora. I believe that materials and processes can act as vessels for collective narratives. Using materials and objects as a form of "allegory" or symbolism, I examine the constructs and fluidness of blackness, time, memory, and history– ideas that have been shaped by societal structures and colonial histories.
The preservation and protection of black histories, identities, bodies, and cultures are essential for future generations and legacies. At its core, my creative practice offers up a critical space for the sharing and exchange of narratives, histories, and futures that are in a constant state of flux.