Best of issue two: Enter the wonderful worlds of this extraordinary visual artist

Catherine E McKinley: In 2012–13, you received a Fulbright Scholars Award in Drawing to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the site of production for many of Nigeria's most formidable mid-century artists whose work is now much sought after. Tell us about that period.
Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze: I went to Nsukka to be as close to the centre of that conversation as possible from a drawing perspective, as opposed to painting. Lagos is the new centre of Nigeria's art world, but at one point it was Nsukka and I was well aware of that distinction and history. My Fulbright year was a period where I meant to explore what was happening in contemporary drawing in that old centre. Did it exist as its own entity, separate from painting? Was there an experimental branch of it in terms of materials, themes and applications? Which artists were at the forefront of the medium? These were some of my questions, but I also went there to have a studio practice and to teach drawing. It was great for me to be in Nigeria. It was the beginning of this current body of my work and I formed some beautiful relationships with other artists who I continue to collaborate with. I wasn't there as an observer or a documentarian. I was there as an artist amongst other artists, and in so many ways, this feels important to where I am now.

CEM: I've been excited about your work since you debuted. I first fell in love with the animal forms and their interplay with female forms – the open narratives, the spare-ness and nonlinear space. What are the things that most deeply inform your recent work?
ROA: I'd say architecture/space, play/magic and hybridity – in that order. First and foremost, everything is driven by an ongoing quest to bend space within a two-dimensional plane. I want to make drawings that move and overlap and transcend the perceived limitations of the page. Which I guess brings us to magic. To invent a world for oneself with its own set of rules/non-rules is both a revolutionary act and a playful one. The characters in the work exist firstly to support the notion of inhabitable space, and secondly to reinforce the magical power of existing freely. So much so that even gravity becomes a myth.

Together both of these things relate to hybridity for me. The hybrid is part of multiple worlds/spaces that have merged, collided, overlapped. And the hybrid, with feet in different spheres, is able to decide for themselves who/what they want to be. They're able to shape-shift and morph. They're able to be elusive. I think magic is part of the hybrid's nature. It seems inherent that such beings get to play with and bend ideas of reality.

CEM: Can we talk about notions of home and of identity expressed by the figures in your work.
ROA: I grew up never having to identify with any particular single country. The narrative of identity was always a mash-up of several things – where I was born versus where I lived, where I grew up, where my parents grew up, etc. The visibility of my art career was largely connected to the resurgence of ‘Contemporary African Art’ in the mainstream art world. At that point, it seemed there was no space for non-nation in the way that I so closely identified. All of a sudden, the thing written about me was that I was ‘Nigerian’. I wasn't opposed to this label, because I am Nigerian, and I feel deeply connected to that land and Nigerian people. But from the beginning, I questioned what it really means to claim a country as an identity, especially one that I've spent so little time in. My drawings speak of a place that exists without name or borders. The inhabitants – ada the alien, audre the leopard, pidgin, merman and others, are not from anywhere. They have no nation, but they're not without kin.

CEM: Do you still love or need these characters?
ROA: ada stays for now, as does audre. It got tricky quickly because people gravitated to those characters and became a bit attached. The drawings were about them initially but I moved from that necessity a long time ago. They stay because I want them to and because they reinforce the spaces, but it's ultimately about the space, not the characters. My work was entirely abstract and void of the figure for years prior to this series. Sometimes it feels like having a figure in the work is a box of some sort, but I also feel like that's ridiculous. I want people to remember that I'm an artist, which means I'm ever curious and evolving. I can change my mind.

CEM: What is going on in your studio right now?
ROA: Currently I have plastic samples and iridescent films lying around. It's a new material for me and I'm not quite sure yet how it'll unfold. But I'm drawn to the transparency in conversation with the paper, much like the watery inks I use. Another ongoing thing for me is exploring ways to be even more intentional about the mounting, framing and installation elements that go with the work – they are all one thing.

CEM: Where might your work go next?
ROA: I'm excited by the drawings becoming more and more three-dimensional. It's new territory for me and comes with elements of discomfort and uncertainty that are so good for an art practice. I get to make a lot of mistakes and ask a lot of questions. It also forces me to open up the work to other voices in the sense of collaboration. I'm not a builder and to think structurally is not my strength. But in conversation with people who live in that space, it turns something on in me. I love that kind of exchange – I live for it! To sit at a table with an architect, a poet, a dancer and a sculptor and talk about drawing – where will we end up? What happens when all of those different ways of thinking and seeing are in sync for a single purpose – to transform paper into something with weight but that still stays paper. Outside of the actual act of drawing, this is where my joy lies.

CEM: The element of dance sounds very stimulating.
ROA: I'm excited at the possibility of spending some time doing movement/dance research. I've practiced Gaga (the movement language) informally and infrequently for some years now. I've been thinking a lot about doing an intensive course this summer and spending some time exploring space with my body. I've been an athlete all of my life, but to align with a dance language is a recent chapter for me and one that informs so much of my drawings. I'm eager for time to pretend to be a dancer.

“My drawings speak of a place that exists without name or borders”

CEM: What is something that people may not know about you that is important to your practice?
ROA: That I'm a runner. Running and drawing feel like two sides of the same coin to me. They're both analogue and they're both steeped in mental, physical and spiritual realms. My whole life I've been pulled by these two forces that at the surface seem so disparate. I competed as a college athlete and spent hours at races or on the road. But just as equally I was in the studio trying to make sense of the relationship between form and content. Running, particularly distance running, takes a similar endurance and mindfulness to sitting on a huge blank piece of paper and drawing with a pencil. In some ways they're equally absurd, but I love that. Things that are so much about time and process take you to places you couldn't have anticipated. The way I approach long runs is to have a general idea of the direction I'm going and approximately how many miles I want to run. And when I’m drawing, I never see the end of it until I arrive. They're one and the same thing to me and I’m interested in that intersection.