Bukola Koiki

Bukola Koiki is a Nigerian-American conceptual fiber artist and educator known for the depth of material curiosity and technical research in her practice. A first-generation immigrant with several intersecting identities, Koiki interprets the world and the complexities of the contemporary Black experience through the lens of a trained designer-turned-craftsperson and from a liminal existence between nations, gender, and culture. In her work, she employs natural and manufactured fibers, printmaking techniques, video performance, and other mediums to interrogate homesickness, rites of passage, diasporic Yoruba culture, transnational linguistic phenomena, the British colonization of Nigeria, and more. Her multidimensional fiber works include — amongst other innovations — hand-pulled prints rendered with embroidered collagraph plates, giant handmade and hand-dyed paper beads employing Nigerian hair threading techniques, and indigo-dyed and hand-printed Tyvek head ties.

She recently received a prestigious US Artist Fellowship for 2023 in Craft as a conceptual fiber artist.

Koiki received her MFA in Applied Craft + Design from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and her BFA in Communication Design from the University of North Texas. She has exhibited nationally, including in Chicago and Portland, OR. In 2019 she was named a Shortlist Finalist for the American Craft Council’s Emerging Voices Award and nominated for the Textile Society of America’s Brandford/Elliott Award in the same year. In Winter/Spring 2022, she was the Inaugural Artist in Residence and Lecturer in Humanities at Bates College in Lewiston, ME and a summer Artist in Residence at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, GA. Koiki’s work has been featured in American Craft and Surface Design magazines and on NPR.bukolakoiki.com