Wura-Natasha Ogunji (b. St. Louis; lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria) works in drawing, painting, performance, and video. In many of her drawings Ogunji explores water as architecture – lagoons rendered in ink, stitched lines of a river, or the empty space of the paper itself (an imagined expanse of sea). Ogunji’s work often develops around language and speaks about her experiences living in Lagos, Nigeria – from the personal notes in her father’s dream journals to the collective interactions in busy market spaces. As the artist creates, titles emerge and become the structure determining the form of the pieces. Her use of materials and methods is also informed by her performance practice.

Ogunji holds a B.A. in anthropology from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in photography from San Jose State University. In 2012, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to create a series of performance videos about the presence of women in public space in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ogunji’s works are in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian African Art Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, University of Texas Austin, and Kadist Foundation. She participated in the 2022 Sydney Biennial, the 2020 Stellenbosch Triennale, the 2018 São Paulo Biennial, and the 2017 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art Paris, Palais de Tokyo, Seattle Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, and other institutions. In 2023, Ogunji’s durational performance video “Will I still carry water when I am a dead woman?” was included in the exhibition “A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography” at Tate Modern in London. Also in 2023, she was an artist in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.