Mesoma Hammida Onyeagba (b. Nigeria, Port Harcourt) is an interdisciplinary artist based in the New York/New Jersey area, who explores painting, textiles, and fashion-based art. Drawing from her Nigerian heritage, Onyeagba transforms discarded fabrics into cherished artifacts that carry histories, memories, and personal narratives. She holds a BFA from the University of Ottawa 2022 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) 2024.

My practice explores the relationship between color, identity, memory, and the material language of textiles. Working across painting, quilting, tufting, and mixed media, I construct imaginative compositions that bring together figurative imagery, abstract forms, patterns, and unconventional color relationships.

Drawing from my Nigerian heritage, personal experiences, and observations of the everyday, I approach fabric as both a material and a language. Discarded textiles, assembled patterns, and layered surfaces become records of time, touch, and labor. Through cutting, piecing, stitching, painting, and tufting, I transform familiar materials into new visual environments that move between abstraction and representation, domestic objects and fine art.

Color plays a central role in my work. I use unexpected combinations, exaggerated shapes, fluid lines, and decorative motifs to create compositions that feel playful, intimate, and sometimes surreal. My paintings often incorporate self-portraiture and the dressed body, while my textile works extend these visual explorations into physical space. In this way, the boundaries between painting, sculpture, fashion, and domestic design become increasingly fluid.

I am interested in how ordinary materials can hold extraordinary possibilities, and how the act of making can become a form of self-documentation. Each composition is an accumulation of decisions, gestures, and materials, reflecting an ongoing negotiation between identity, imagination, and belonging. All mediums combined are presented as one continuous artistic investigation and aren’t separate from one another.

Mesoma’s works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the U.S and internationally, including at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, Arts14c, and Ottawa Art Gallery, TEDxUTAustin etc Her art is also held in private collections, including at The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach and the Consulate General of Finland in New York City. Onyeagba has been recognized with awards such as the Municipal Art League Fellowship Award and the Suzanne Rivard-Le Moyne Award. Her work has been highlighted in publications such as 1883 Magazine, New American Paintings, MFA Annual Issue, Vanguard News Nigeria, Business Insider and Yale Daily News.