MIXED MEDIA ON COTTON CANVAS
2026
It burns, yet we hope is a self-portrait about living through a world that increasingly feels overwhelmed by political, ecological, and social crises. The work reimagines Leonardo da Vinci’s "Salvator Mundi" . Instead of holding a perfect world, the artist holds one that is damaged, unstable, and still worth protecting.
As a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist living in Ireland, migration, borders, belonging, and displacement are not distant ideas to Obinna. They are part of the world he inhabits. The work grew from waking up to a constant stream of difficult news and trying to make sense of it.
“I am not saving the world. I am holding it while it burns.” The work asks what responsibility his generation carries for the world we inherited, and whether we can imagine something new while the old world is falling apart.
Obinna Michael Imo is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Dublin. His practice spans visual arts, digital and graphic design, illustration, and clothing and accessory design. With a background in economics, global citizenship education, and social and community work, his practice is shaped by personal experience and academic journey.
Through socially engaged art, Obinna explores how art can facilitate social dialogue, participation, and inclusion. Alongside this, he develops his visual arts practice, with particular interest in portraiture and the ways visual language can communicate culture and identity.
Obinna was selected for the “Crucial Moves: Cork to Donegal” Mobile Artists Residency Programme 2026, Catalyst Residency from Create and Fire Station Artists’ Studios 2025. He is a member of Visual Artists Ireland and A4 Sounds. He recently exhibited in the “Black Noise” group exhibition at Gallery X, Dublin.