CARY OKORO

"I am inspired by the natural world, the lives people lead, and the beauty and trauma inherent in both."

"The Memory of Water" at Keeler Gallery (Grand Rapids, MI) Spring, 2025

The Memory of Water © 2025
Acrylic on Canvas with Fabric, Clothes Pins, Enamel Bowl, Photo Transparency & Water
(Private Collection)

The title of this piece derives from the homeopathic principle that water can ‘remember’ the properties of a substance long after it has been diluted. Using family photographs and repurposed objects, I layer narratives of resilience from women in my family with imagery of native plants which are hardy and drought-tolerant to explore the connection between water and memory. A small photo transparency of girls swimming floats in the basin, suggesting the question: What is ‘remembered’ beyond conscious memory? What do we carry with us of those who came before? From the basins of water used by women laboring across generations to the amniotic fluid that nourishes life and yet also transmits markers for generational trauma: What do we carry from those who labored, who washed, who cried, who loved?

"Lineage" Installation Views, ArtPrize (Grand Rapids, MI) Fall, 2024

"Lineage" © 2024
Digital Collage printed on Linen with Embroidery and Foraged Native Plants
(Private Collection)

“Lineage” is an installation of digital collages printed on linen with embroidery that explores the relationship between five generations of women in my family and the interconnection between memory, identity, trauma and nature as a source of healing.

Using photographs, scrapbooks, embroidery and native plant imagery, layered portraits allow a deceased relative to occupy the same garden as her great-grandchild, exploring what gets passed down through shared knowledge and love, but also through generational trauma.

Recent Work:

"We Reach Across the Same Blue Sky" ArtPod by GRAM (Grand Rapids Art Museum) Fall, 2022

"We Reach Across the Same Blue Sky refers to the underlying connection of human beings to each other and to nature, ultimately the deepest forms of belonging."

We Reach Across the Same Blue Sky is a visual meditation on migration, culture and identity. Using images and text from my family’s rural history in Switzerland and Sweden and my husband’s rural roots in Nigeria, this work explores how the journeys of those who came before impact our developing sense of identity and belonging.

Working in charcoal and washes of aqueous paint, portraits and landscapes from our family histories are punctuated with handwritten lines of text, photo transparencies and deep blues and greens that flow onto the wall space, echoing the changing landscape of identity. The title, “We Reach Across the Same Blue Sky,” refers to the underlying connection of human beings to each other and to nature, ultimately the deepest forms of belonging.

Showing at the Muse GR ArtPod, 128 Louis St. NW