Discover the life and work of Precious Okoyomon, the Nigerian British American poet and artist shaping living ecosystems, from Frieze Artist Award 2021 to Venice Biennale 2022.
Who is Precious Okoyomon, and why the buzz now
Precious Okoyomon transforms galleries into breathing worlds. The Nigerian British American poet and artist is known for installations that grow, wilt and change in real time, often using kudzu, sugar, soil and butterflies to face histories of power and care head on. Their work drew global attention with the Frieze Artist Award in 2021 and a major presence at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
Searches spike because Okoyomon’s practice is not just visual. It feels alive. Viewers move through living environments that connect colonial trade routes to present day ecologies, and poetry to sculpture. The biography behind that singular voice matters, and the milestones help make sense of the path.
Biography of Precious Okoyomon, from roots to studio
Born in London in 1993, Precious Okoyomon traces Nigerian heritage and works from New York today. The hybrid identity sits at the core of their practice, which blends literature, performance and installation into one continuous ecosystem. No separation between page and plant, just a steady flow of language, smell, texture and time.
Okoyomon writes poetry and builds environments that grow over weeks or months. The move collapses past and present without speeches, letting vines climb, sugar crust, water evaporate. Viewers read the room as a poem. The poem breathes back.
The main idea lands quickly. Biography in this case is not a list of schools. It is a set of migrations and materials that formed a voice anchored in care, memory and the messy beauty of change.
Practice and themes, explained without jargon
Kudzu appears often in Okoyomon’s installations. The fast climbing plant, introduced to the United States in the late nineteenth century, is frequently called the vine that ate the South. Okoyomon does not stage a lecture. They stage encounters with an invasive species that thrived through human trade and policy, and now demands a new form of attention.
Sugar shows up too, a material tied to centuries of labor and extraction. When sugar melts or crystallizes in a gallery, it quietly links bodies and markets, pleasure and pain. That is the observation many miss when they only see a pretty garden.
Common mistake number one, reducing Okoyomon to poet or to sculptor. The work is both. Number two, looking for the single finished image. Installations change daily. A rigourous reading accepts that living systems resist a final frame.
Concrete example that helps. In 2022, the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani under the title The Milk of Dreams, included Precious Okoyomon. Visitors moved through plantings and found a choreography of light, scent and growth instead of static objects. The piece asked for time and presence, not just a photo.
Key exhibitions and awards that define the timeline
A few dated milestones anchor this biography without flattening it. These are useful signposts for anyone mapping the rise of Precious Okoyomon on the global stage.
- 1993 : Birth in London, with Nigerian heritage, later based in New York.
- 2021 : Frieze Artist Award, a platform at Frieze New York that supported a new commission and pushed the work to a wider audience.
- 2022 : Participation in the 59th Venice Biennale The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, which spotlighted experimental and cross disciplinary practices.
These dates matter because they mark a turn from poetry circles to major institutional platforms. Visibility changed, but the core stayed the same. Living materials, historical memory, and a care centered approach to making and hosting audiences.
How to read Precious Okoyomon today
Think of Okoyomon’s installations as ecosystems with instructions. Follow scent, track where plants creep, notice what decays. Poetry often threads through wall texts, performance or sound. Reading and looking happen together, then the room keeps changing after you leave.
For those catching up now, start with museum and biennale catalogues from 2021 and 2022, look for interviews that discuss the use of kudzu and sugar, and check programming notes from institutions that have hosted their living environments. Many projects unfold over weeks, so diaries and process images reveal as much as the opening night shot.
The takeaway inside the work feels clear. Materials carry histories. When a plant overwhelms a space or sugar crystallizes across a surface, the piece sets a pace that refuses quick consumption. That is where the biography meets the methodology. A life lived across places turns into art that holds many times at once. Viewers do the rest, with patience, attention and curiosity that the artist has quietly invited since 1993.