W&M Featured Events

Location

James Blair Hall, Room 223
250 James Blair Dr
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location

Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi, painter, art critic, ethno-aesthetician and cultural entrepreneur, has a BA (First Class Honours) in Fine and Applied Arts, an MFA in Painting and a PhD in Art History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is the founder of the Pan-African Circle of Artists (PACA) and Emeritus President of The Art Republic (also known as Centre for Arts and Cultural Democracy), Enugu. He has participated in workshops and creative residencies and has directed Afrika Heritage (the PACA Biennale), Overcoming Maps (PACA Study Tour of Africa), and the Mmanwu Theatre in Enugu. Ikwuemesi has researched and published on aspects of Igbo arts; his doctoral thesis embodied a comparative study of Igbo and Ainu arts and cultures. In 2009 he researched Ainu arts and aesthetics as a Japan Foundation Fellow in Hokkaido. He is the editor of two major journals: The Art Republic and Letter from Afrika. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and was recently a Visiting Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. He is a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies African Humanities Program and a Senior Fellow of the IFRA (French Institutue for Research in Africa). He was recently Coordinator of the Humanities Unit in the School of General Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and is currently the coordinator of the Death Studies Association of Nigeria. A polyvalent artist, Ikwuemesi has held several solo and group exhibitions and published many articles on art in professional journals.