Ebitenyefa Baralaye
I create artworks to frame and express the diverse intangible elements affecting existence and human identity. I lean towards abstraction as the voice of my creative work because of its universality and potential for mapping specific associations between the common reality of everyday life and the layered fabric of physical, mental and emotional awareness.
My focus is on sculpture. The physical body serves as the form within which all of humanity’s metaphysical perspectives reside. I think of my artworks as bodies, vessels and entities, echoing this state of being while also independently participating in it.
In my work I source a range of influences - music, faith, philosophy and social concerns - and intuitively manipulate mediums - found objects, clay, plaster, metal, colors, marks and stains. Through techniques of sculpting, assembling, collage, layering and blending I aim to create faithful translations of the arrayed output of my ideological perspectives.
