Nigerian-American Dozie Kanu was raised in Houston and grew up around rap culture and the city’s slab car scene. The latter—a world of customization, shine, and individuality—shaped how he sees design and taught him that materials and form can express identity.
He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2016. His first museum solo exhibition was held at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2019.
Working from his studio in Santarem, Portugal, Kanu practices intentionally at the intersecting points between design, fine art, performance, and set design. By appropriating found objects and refashioning them to new aesthetics, he creates sculptures and photography that are inherently disobedient and stubbornly slippery, resisting classification and existing as communicative or performative objects.
