VMF Academy Collection Artist: Ejiwa ‘Edge’ Ebenebe
Ejiwa ‘Edge’ Ebenebe is a Nigerian-Canadian artist based in BC, Canada. Born outside of her parent’s homeland, she experienced multiple cultures throughout her childhood and early adulthood. As an immigrant, she wrestles with concepts of community and identity, both within herself and her work. She strives to create representation for voices (particularly Black and/or LGBTQ+ women) who are often pushed out of positive, empowering narratives. Simultaneously echoing in her work is a love for the ethereal, fantasy stories she grew up with.
From a passion for vibrant colours to a love of ornamentation, her varying homes have strongly moulded her creative perspective, weaving themselves throughout each piece. In combining all these influences she hopes to create uplifting and whimsical work, a respite from life’s rigours. Over the course of her career, she has worked with clients including Scholastic, Wizards of the Coast and Marvel. Her work has also featured in publications such as F(r)iction, Infected By Art and ImagineFX Magazine.
Edge’s mural “Flower Crown” was painted at VMF2020 as a celebration of Black tranquility, happiness and presence depicting a woman with a stunning array of flowers around her head, and a yellow butterfly gently resting on her hand. We are so excited to have her included in the VMF Academy Collection as her piece, “Genesis”, continues to bring powerful messaging within its incredible beauty. She describes how her work in “Genesis” was “driven by a deep conviction — the desire to see powerful, vibrant, joyful, uncompromising visions of our humanity as Black people existing in this world, and those deep feelings flash visions of powerful and unyielding beings in [her] mind. And as [she] painted Genesis, [she] felt a being call out to [her], and [she] brought them into focus.”
VMF: Your work has a dreamy and other-worldly feel to it that we absolutely love. How did you develop such a beautifully unique style?
E: Thank you so much for the really lovely compliments! It wasn’t an intentional development on my part, I feel my art style has naturally morphed as a result of allowing myself to be increasingly honest and focused on exploring topics and aesthetics I really love, as well as working to improve my fundamental skills (especially my understanding of colour, I think).
Also, my parents introduced me to illustrated fairytale books at a very young age, and the whimsical artwork in those books have fascinated me deeply ever since. This love for fairy tales expanded into my ongoing love of fantasy art and aesthetics, and I’m always striving to capture that sort of magical, ethereal quality in my own work.
It took time, and a lot of trial and error, for me to really start to understand what was drawing me to specific aesthetics, colours, shapes, etc. It’s an ongoing process in fact, but as I started to better understand why I was resonating with these elements, and observed/studied the work of artists I really love (including those older fairytale books), the parts I wanted to incorporate into my own work became clearer. And then, as I worked to figure out how to create work that melded those elements I loved, the style I’m working in naturally evolved over time.
VMF: The messaging behind your work is incredibly powerful. Can you expand on the quote you included in your artist statement for this piece?
“Within the depths of space slumbers an ancient entity. Born of untold mass and limitless energy, it awaits the hour of its intended purpose. Upon that fated moment, it shall whisper it’s final breath, surrendering to destiny and giving itself up to create life anew.”
E: I struggle to answer queries like this, because understanding where the visuals or, in this case, phrases popping into my mind stem from (apart from previously mentioned aesthetic/genre fascinations and influences) is an ongoing struggle for me…While my overarching body of work is deeply driven a desired to see the pool of positive, unyielding Black representation grow, I don’t often find myself actively thinking in coherent stories or messages on an individual-artwork level - instead my brain loves to make spontaneous, fragmented connections between things, informed by varying elements and experiences in my life so far, and those connections spark strong feelings that feel a need to pull out into existence.
The best way I’ve found to try and describe it so far (and hopefully it doesn’t sound too ridiculous), is that it sort of feels like there is a tangled landscape my brain is constantly generating, and the beings wandering that landscape almost exist in a realm of their own, that I’m not really able to perceive directly (you know, having aphantasia probably has a lot to do with this, haha). And so they are constantly trying to reach through the tangles to reveal themselves, or their worlds, to me. And maybe I just haven’t gotten good enough at understanding them yet!
In the case of Genesis, as I was working on the piece I felt the being I was painting becoming more and more magnetic to me, and when I found myself needing to convey my feelings about the artwork after it was done (writing accompaniments to my pieces isn’t a natural/automatic progression for me (yet, anyway), as attempting to solidify my root thoughts feels highly unintuitive to me), as I sat with the piece and tried to understand the what and why of its existence, this thought crystalised for me instead.
To be honest, I think I mostly create what I do simply because it just... feels right, because it feels somehow necessary, that it needs to take a form outside my mind, even though I can barely explain why. And I think because I myself am so unsure of how to decipher a clear root of this quote, or articulate a ‘why’ behind my individual artworks in general (and I then wonder if I’m attempting to force a connection with my work that isn’t actually authentic to me), I find myself hoping that others can meet my work on their own terms instead.
I’m incredibly fascinated by the possibility of learning what others might be perceiving and resonating with, within these fragments trickling into our reality.
VMF: Is there anything in particular that drove you to choose this piece for the VMF Academy Collection?
E: It’s one of my favourite artworks to date, and it created a huge breakthrough in my understanding of how to craft the sort of artwork I really feel pulled to make. I’ve also noticed that folks seem to resonate with it a lot (which makes me so incredibly happy), and so it felt like the right choice overall!
VMF: What are some exciting things you have lined up for 2021?
E: Unfortunately there’s not a lot I’m working on right now that I can really talk about yet, due to NDAs (though I’m really excited about being able to share them in the hopefully near future!)...
...However I am super excited to share my first ever jigsaw puzzle, ‘Listen To Me And I’ll Tell You A Story’, created in collaboration with GenuineFred! As a huge, lifelong puzzle fan myself, I’m thrilled to be a part of their latest collection. The artwork it features is another piece that was a huge breakthrough for me at the time, and is so dear to my heart.
I’m also excited about the upcoming Literary Tarot Deck, created by Brink Literacy Project, that will be going live on kickstarter very soon - I’ve been creating the box design for the deck, and after seeing the behind-the-scenes on the card development I can say it’s going to be such a gorgeous project.
I’ll also be creating quite a bit of original/traditional artwork over the next few months, and I’m really looking forward to sharing those as they come into being!