Artist Precious Okoyomon discusses how learning to fly a propeller plane has influenced their artistic practice, from dioramas depicting aerial perspectives to a video work reading poetry from the cockpit. Their first exhibition with Mendes Wood DM in Paris, titled 'It’s important to have ur fangs out at the end of the world' (through 17 January), features sculptures, wallpaper, a fable, and three lightbox dioramas that draw on sky studies taken while flying. Okoyomon earned their pilot’s license before their driver’s license as a teenager in Ohio, and continues to fly when visiting family, finding the experience a reset for their nervous system.
This matters because Okoyomon is a rising contemporary artist whose work—addressing ecology, resilience, and humanity’s impact—has been featured at the 2022 Venice Biennale and a 2025 solo show at Kunsthaus Bregenz. The article highlights a rare intersection of visual art and aviation, connecting Okoyomon to a short list of artist-pilots like James Turrell, and underscores how personal experience can shape thematic and formal choices in art. It also provides insight into the artist’s creative process and the role of flight as both a literal and metaphorical source of perspective.