#1-2: Ruby Okoro

Here we see the work of Nigerian photographer Ruby Okoro. Ruby Okoro’s work takes the black figure as a starting point. We often see black figures in popular culture, sports, movies, and so on. However, Ruby is less interested in what these figures look like physically and more intrigued by how we might represent them psychologically and emotionally, even in a dreamlike state. Thus, you move from what might be familiar—a black man with his back turned to the camera—into another state. The work is colored red and impressionistic; once again, the ground beneath our feet becomes unstable, unsolid. We find ourselves in unknown territory; we think we recognize the terrain, but the ground beneath us has shifted profoundly. We move from the known world into unknown states of being, into unknown realms of possibility, from the living into the dreamlike, from the physical into a world of limitless potential. These are the realms that Ruby Okoro explores.