Hidden cocoons and piñata-like hearts: Nnena Kalu's sculptures at Arcadia Missa

Suspended from the ceiling of Arcadia Missa’s brightly lit London gallery, Nnena Kalu’s sculptures radiate joy and energy, creativity and colour, and the kind of promise and play associated with a Mexican piñata. For Kalu’s sculptures are not just about what’s visible to the naked eye; they are also concerned with what is carefully concealed from sight. Compactly woven around a central cocoon, an incubated form in which the life of each piece generates, these wrapped works boast a plethora of materials and strands, artistic processes and aesthetic positions.

Nnena Kalu at Arcadia Missa

Known for her expansive drawings of swirling vortexes against bold polychromatic backdrops, Kalu intuitively allows the line to take the lead in all her works. Whilst her impressive drawings – which are often taped to the wall and created standing up – convey the compulsion of the artist and the freedom in which she allows the line to dynamically dominate, her sculptures evince a more rhythmical and contemplative approach.

Repurposing scraps of various fabrics and tapes, piping and rope, the artist methodically and absorbedly wraps strand upon vibrantly shaded strand to create works which are both tightly woven and almost bursting at their seams. Unlike her drawn vortexes, which appear as sublime and forceful acts of the imagination, the three-dimensional works are softer and more feminine – though no less impressively crafted for it.

As Dr Maggie Matić has discussed in her writings on Kalu’s work, sculpture for the artist is as much about the body as it is a process that involves it. Everywhere one looks these mysterious, free-floating entities evince signs of the hands that made them. Blue and white plastic strips frothily cascade down from one sculpture, whilst a mass of white tubular fibres emerge from another, thus making her process-based intentions and experimentation clear.

One of the favourite works of the exhibition – a punkish pink and rebel red heart – glows from afar but up close is a tangle of knots and tapes (perhaps reminiscent of the human core). Kalu’s sculptures are, therefore, as much embodiments of the artist’s own physical movements, as they are depictions of individual bodily forms.

Hiding cocoons within but brandishing all kinds of colour and pattern without, Kalu’s sculptures excite and entrance with their embodied craft, as well as their crafting of space, so much so that the final result is a bold beating heart of a show.

Nnena Kalu at Arcadia Missa is showing until 2 June 2024 arcadiamissa.com