Kobina Wright
Kobina Wright is an American writer, artist and filmmaker. She is the creator of the Ħodaoa-Anibo language which she began developing in 2004 and published The Ħodaoa-Anibo Dictionary and The Abridged Ħodaoa-Anibo Dictionary. Wright is also the writer and director of the short suspense film, Two Three.
Early Years
Wright was born in Orange, California to Guy and Ernesta Wright (nee Banks). Her father was enlisted in the Coast Guard in her early childhood, and the family lived briefly in Michigan, Maryland and North Carolina, where her brother, Marques, was born. Wright, however, spent the majority of her childhood with her parents and brother in California. This return was a source of great inspiration for Wright as she absorbed warmth and developed close bonds to her extended family, including her maternal grandparents, Earl and Ernestine Banks.
By second grade, she expressed her raw talent and keen gravitation towards creative writing. By 10th grade, Wright was contributing to her school’s creative writing literary magazine and at the same time, began creating acrylic paintings on canvas. In her senior year of high school, she studied choreography and published her first volume of poetry, titled, Oh Yeah!
Wright attended the University of Georgia for two years where she performed with the modern dance group, “Pamoja.” She later attended California State University, Long Beach but after giving birth to her daughter; earned her BA from California State University, Fullerton; in Journalism with a minor in Afro-Ethnic Studies. In the latter years at the university, she created and choreographed for the Likizo Dance Troupe, a group that performed throughout Southern California.
After working as an assistant editor at Entrepreneur Media, Wright began studying at the Gloria Gifford Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Hollywood, a move which prepared her for a principal role in the film, Dark Town. The two years at the conservatory inspired Wright, not only as an actress, but also as a screenwriter. It was here, in this experimental and critical place where she tested her screenplay Snapped Back in her first actor-casted reading. Wright has gone on to perform in independent films, student films and commercials. She has written several short and feature length screenplays.
Film
In 2021, Wright began production on a short film she wrote and directed titled, “Two Three,” a KS Media production, produced by Henry Jones III, starring, Kevi Yada. The film score was composed by her daughter, Addae, who graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 2020.
Literary Works
In 2001 Wright wrote her second volume of poetry titled, Growth Spurt and in 2004, wrote her third volume titled, Say It! Say Gen-o-cide!! – in memory of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. In 2003, Wright created the Ħodaoa-Anibo language – a language she views as a work of art, dedicated to her ancestors who were forced to give up their native tongues once they were enslaved in the New World. In 2004, she published the first edition Ħodaoa-Anibo Dictionary. This was followed up in 2006 with the Ħodaoa-Anibo Free Book – a volume of essays and samples of the Ħodaoa-Anibo language. In 2009, she published The Abridged Ħodaoa-Anibo Dictionary.
Together with friend, Elle Beah Lacey, Wright created nuler poetry: a genre of poetry in which the title of the poem is so long and expressive it is practically a poem itself, followed by a short (eight words or less) and exacting poem below. In 2009, the two co-authored a volume of poetry titled, A Crime And A Simplification Of Something Sublime. This volume also included the artwork from both Wright and Lacey. After the death of pop singer, Michael Jackson in 2010, Wright created a volume of nuler poetry dedicated to him titled, 50.
Wright’s essays and poetry has appeared in several literary magazines including: Lunch Ticket; Adelaide Literary Magazine; Blackberry: A Magazine; Blue Lake Review; Burningword Literary Journal; Extract(s); Free State Review; Gyroscope Review; IthacaLit; Missing Slate; Orion headless; Pennsylvania Literary Journal; SNReview; The Bicycle Review; The Passionate Transitory; Torrid Literature Journal and Wilderness House Literary Review.
Art
In 2012, Wright created an art series titled, Kobiphysics, which was inspired by ancient and modern physicists. On April 27th, 2012, she exhibited this work in her first solo exhibition called, Kobiphysics: An Art Show, at the Huntington Beach library in Huntington Beach, California.
Later, in November 2012, Wright participated in an artist residency in Chiang Mai, Thailand and exhibited an installation – a series of hand-dyed silk banners inspired by Tibetan Prayer Flags and the Ħodaoa-Anibo language. The exhibition opened on December 1st at the Chiang Mai Circus Terminal Exhibition at Sangdee Gallery.
In 2015, Wright organized her second solo show in Santa Ana, California, titled, STATIC! This show touched upon the theme of the abuse of authoritative power, including police brutality. In this exhibition, Wright incorporated a number of activities to garner public support, including funding the project through Indiegogo and an exuberant launch of the crowdfunding effort through what was called STATIC Wave. STATIC Wave was a group message synchronized by waves to be forwarded by supporters according to time zones. The time set to launch the first wave of forwarded messages was at noon, Eastern Standard Time.
In 2019, Wright leaned into her abstract and surrealistic drawing style, creating a series of large scale black and blue ink drawings incorporating the use of sigils and time variations. She called this style, Least Pennism. In 2020, during the height of the Corona Virus Pandemic, Wright exhibited several of these drawing in three online solo exhibitions.
By the end of 2020, Wright began to incorporate Adinkra symbols to tie both the Ħodaoa-Anibo language and her visual images to her ancestral lineage (West African). A portion of this work was also created as companion work for Star Theory, a series of poems comparing the phases of astronomical star development to African Americans and the African diaspora.
At the beginning of 2021, Wright broke with hard time variables and began incorporating gouache paint with these ink drawings, adding color and depth and expanded on the Adinkra symbols by adding her own symbology.
Wright’s art has been exhibited around the world including: England; Spain; Suriname; Slovenia; New Zealand; The Netherlands; France, U.S. and Thailand.
Wright also signs her work under, Lightwall.