Her designs and illustrations are celebrating colours and lack of boundaries both physical and mental. Her photographs often portray subjects that take simply engulf the viewers with their personal stories. One thing's for sure: with just a simple glance of any work signed by visual artist and photographer Ngadi Smart, one ventures to exciting spaces celebrating cultural heritage, diversity and femininity.
Ngadi Smart is a Sierra Leonean visual artist and designer based between London, U.K and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Her practice comprises of illustration, photography and design. She also works as a mixed media artist, primarily in the form of collage art.
In her illustration work, she is motivated by the representation of minorities, highlighting cultural identity and racial discrimination, as well as themes on feminism and gender roles. She likes to deconstruct mainstream society’s preconceived views of what the definitions of “normal”, “beautiful”, and “right” are. She has illustrated for The Atlantic, Time Out London, Eastpak, The Guardian, as well as for publishing houses such as Penguin’s Riverhead Books in NYC and London’s Faber’s Children.
In her photography, her focus is documenting cultures, subcultures and intimacy. Her work often speaks on how people self-identify and choose to present themselves in front of the lens. Recently, she has also been interested in documenting Black sensuality and culture from an African point of view. She aims to show as many representations of African people, and what it means to be African as she can. Her photography has been published on CNN, British Journal of Photography, Vogue Italia, Atmos Magazine, and I.D Magazine.