​Jebila Okongwu transforms the exuberant graphics of banana boxes into layered paintings and mixed-media works that explore identity, desire, cultural histories, and the visual politics of global trade. Working with both actual boxes and their distinctive imagery—shipped from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America to Western markets—Okongwu treats these commercial objects as condensed sites of cultural encounter and historical exchange. The tropicalized graphics echo patterns of commerce that follow old colonial networks, yet Okongwu reclaims this aesthetic vocabulary, investigating how identities are constructed, commodified, and transformed through representation. Drawing on diverse visual traditions and symbolic systems, his work bridges abstraction and representation, employing materials charged with cross-cultural resonance. Through bold color, collaged elements, and textured surfaces, Okongwu’s works function as counter-narratives that challenge essentialist representations while asserting the complexity and vitality of hybrid, diasporic experience—speaking to anyone navigating between worlds, categories, or inherited histories.

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Born in London and then raised in Nigeria and Australia, Okongwu currently lives and works in Rome. He received a BA in Visual Art from Monash University, Melbourne, and a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art (Painting) from the University of Melbourne. His work has been exhibited at prominent international institutions including the Schlossmuseum, Linz, Austria (2020), the American Academy in Rome (2015), the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (2014), and the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2013). Okongwu’s work is held in the permanent collections of the the Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, USA, and the Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria. His practice is further celebrated in various publications including ‘100 Sculptors of Tomorrow’ (Thames & Hudson) and ‘Graphite Interdisciplinary Arts Journal’ (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles).