Florian Okwu is a visual artist and designer based in Vancouver, BC. He works in a variety of mediums, exploring sculptural forms, architectural & abstract illustrations, as well as digital environments. Florian leans on the notion that his artistic practice, much like nature, follows an evolutionary path constrained by the freedoms of chaos, intuition, and primal desires. He considers and struggles with balance (or harmony), as both a literal & physical ideal through form, as well as through his role in an industrializing world so deeply intertwined with mythologies, cosmic futures, and the mysterious mechanisms which drive our lives, deaths, and dreams.

Artist Statement

“Among all forms of creative expression, carving is my favorite. It engages the entire self, blending mind and body into a single-purposed tool. I discover a deep appreciation for humanity through it’s labors,  immersing myself in the roots of civilizations and, fundamentally, the core questions of what it means to be a human being. From sensual satisfactions and physical toils to meditative and philosophical addictions, the carving process is laced and overflowing with mental dances, relationships and secrets...

Most drawing to me is the three dimensionality of sculptural works: The presence they hold and the way our minds engage with them. To see an object as more than it’s materials, to imbue it with a soul, the way we might a person, a pet, a place. Sculptures offer an artist the opportunity to reshape the fabric of this world, creasing it in ways to reveal the relationships and erosions they have created between their mind and the world around them. These objects come to life and, like you or me, learn to inhabit their bodies. Like us, a sculpture is limited by its form, but these limitations are the doorways to understanding its relationship with the world. In shape, we find subtleties, hidden seeds embedded into form which grow for every person a different tree. There is no one meaning for the abstract works I make... any meaning comes from the intention to have chosen to create them at all; The rest is left to time, and those who meet them along the way.”