Her study of sculpture at the University of Brighton has allowed the artist to utilise and refine her skills through her preferred medium of crochet. Aware of the esoteric exclusivity often associated with the art world, Cookey-Gam ensures that her work is imbued with a strong sense of accessibility and relatability. A recent project on solitude explored the shared experience of our individualist society whilst also addressing the artist’s own need for seclusion in order to create. Through focussing on her own individual experience of loneliness and solitude, Cookey-Gam uses her art to effectively explore the benefits that self-reflection has on the development of a group.

There is a particular sense of displacement concomitant with persons born and raised in one country but bound by genealogical ties to a different culture. For Cookey-Gam, this cultural position inspires and inscribes her current work. Born in South London to Nigerian parents, Cookey-Gam has a self-proclaimed dissociation from her West African heritage, “Being a British-born Nigerian has left me out of the loop on what the country is really like. I am left to make my judgement on Nigeria based on what the Western world reveals about it in the media”. Observing, and in many ways, experiencing a country and culture through a Western lens has allowed for Cookey-Gam to create installations that limns the experience of second generation migrancy.

Cookey-Gam intends to continue her practise by completing her MA in London at the Royal College of Art.

https://www.kimberleycookeygam.com