(O)KAN is a wordplay rooted in the tonal richness of the Yorùbá language, where a shift in intonation opens up vastly different meanings. In one register, ọkan means “one”—a symbol of unity, singularity, or wholeness. In another, ó kán translates as “it broke”—evoking rupture, fragmentation, and loss. Other permutations speak to the heart, the soul, the conscience, bitterness, and the sensations of being included, touched, affected, or broken open.

In (O)KAN: a solo exhibition of 16 collage works in an ongoing series, Nigerian-born International Transdisciplinary Artist VILLAGER activates this linguistic multiplicity to explore the fragile and fluid relationship between language, memory, and meaning. In this evocative series of works on paper, VILLAGER uses found objects like forks and combs to inscribe textured foundations into the collage by grafting the acrylic surface with vibrational marks of energetic potential. These abstract sites become ground for uncovering the layered architectures of memory. The image-making process of selecting, deconstructing, and reassembling found images from old books, magazines, personal archives, and catalogs results in a visual language that reflects the ambiguity and contradiction at the heart of mourning and mending.

By weaving together personal histories, lived experiences, and ancestral mythologies through collage and drawing, (O)KAN,  emerges as a recursive act of remembering. It is an intimate intervention–a revisiting, rewriting, and reimagining of personal and collective memory that traces the looping echoes of grief, loss, love, and healing as they slip across time, body, and spirit.

Rather than presenting fixed narratives, (O)KAN holds space for ambiguity, contradiction, silence, and what lies beyond sight. It invites viewers to discover meaning in the in-between: between images and words, between presence and absence, between what is spoken, seen, felt, and forgotten. In this quiet tension, VILLAGER calls us to reflect: How do we carry what has been broken? How do we touch the bitterness held in our hearts and souls? And what wholeness might begin to take shape from the act of holding?

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(O)KAN was on view from June 4 – June 25, 2025, at Motor House West Bay Gallery, 120 W North Ave, Baltimore, MD 21201.