Baker Artist Portfolios

Arit Emmanuela Etukudo is a Nigerian-American Self-Portrait, Moving Image Installation, and Performance Artist. Her practice deals with the fluidity and metamorphosis of Black identity. She uses transformative dreaming to explore the ontology, mysticism, history, and transcendental realities that live at the root of African existence. She does this by transporting intimate moments within her body onto the physical and digital space. Etukudo earned her BA in Cinematic Arts from University of Maryland Baltimore county and her MFA in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University. She also took an Erasmus at École Supérieure des Beaux-arts. She has exhibited and performed in spaces such as New Art Exchange, UK; Art Share LA, USA; and Théâtre Paul Scarron, France. She has earned achievements such as a 2024 VCCA Fellowship, 2023 MacDowell Fellowship, the 2020 Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant, 2019 NAE Future Exhibition Prize, and the 2017 Indie Capitol Award for Best Experimental/Animated film. Her work has been exhibited globally at venues like The Peale Museum (Baltimore, MD), New Art Exchange (Nottingham, UK), and Kultur Im Zentrum (Giesse, Germany). She currently lives and works in Baltimore MD.