EKOW NIMAKO: LEGO LEGEND

Walk of Fame | Martin Bierens

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When it comes to art there is no limit to the medium an artist can employ. This creativity is evident in the work of Toronto-based artist Ekow Nimako, who creates his art using LEGO bricks.

The inspiration for Nimako’s art came from a lifelong love of LEGO and the odd paradoxical freedom to craft rigid geometric shapes into flowing, lifelike structures. While Nimako is able to create extremely unique sculptures he articulates that LEGO’s structure informs and shapes his art.

Ekow Nimako with his artwork (Source). 

When viewing a Nimako sculpture the first aspect of the piece that one notices is the colour. Nearly all of Nimako’s sculptures are entirely black. This reflects his own identity as a Black man in Canada. Nimako says that LEGO is not typically perceived to be part of Black culture. It is only recently that LEGO has represented ethnic minorities in Minifigures. Before the 1980s, Minifigures were exclusively the iconic LEGO Yellow. Though LEGO’s goal was to create non-racial Minifigures, they soon became associated with Whiteness. The first representation of Black people as LEGO Minifigures was the introduction of an NBA Basketball playset, and the Star Wars character Lando Calrissian. This lack of representation was obvious to Nimako, and to address and combat the issue he creates distinctively Black art.

World on the Camels Back (Triptych) in Building Black: Civilizations at the Aga Khan Museum (Photo Courtesy of Martin Bierens)

Nimako’s art explores themes of Afrofuturism. Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that draws influence from science fiction, history, and fantasy to represent the Black experience, particularly the African-American experience, and is a method for Black Westerners to connect with their African heritage. Many of Nimako’s sculptures come to mind when reading this definition. Some of which were featured in the exhibition Building Black: Civilizations at the Aga Khan Museum where Nimako created pieces that explored the history of Sub-Saharan Africa through a fantastical lens. Another notable piece is titled Cavalier Noir. This sculpture features a heroic Black rider atop of a large unicorn. When describing the work, Nimako likens the sculpture to bronze statues of White colonial conquerors. His wish is for the viewer to see a representation of a Black heroic figure, and for us to question “who are our heroes?”

Two young men viewing Cavalier Noir exhibited during Nuit Blanche 2018. (Source).

Using the platform Nimako has gained through his art, he is working towards affecting societal change. Nimako’s art is intrinsically linked with his race and he considers himself an identity-based artist. As such, he has spoken to school children about the importance of everybody’s identity. Nimako also expresses the immense emotion he experiences when witnessing Black children seeing themselves represented in art. Along with his work in schools, Nimako also recently spoke about the murders of George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, and Ashanti Carmon in an Instagram post. In this post, Nimako also speaks to the racism he himself experienced growing up in London, Ontario, and how that has influenced the artwork he creates as an adult.

The exhibition, Building Black: AMORPHIA, at The Power Plant, recently closed in June, but Nimako frequently has solo exhibitions around the GTA so make sure to keep an eye out for your next opportunity to view his work in person.