Highlighting The Artists of Meow Wolf Houston: Dawn Okoro

As Meow Wolf Houston grows closer to opening, we’re getting to know all of the artists that have contributed something uniquely their own. Dawn Okoro is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas, whose work is influenced by punk, hip-hop, and the composition techniques used in fashion photography. In our interview, she spoke more in depth about these foundations, her journey and what she’s currently working on with Meow Wolf.

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Born and raised in Texas, Okoro loved drawing since she was a kid, though it was not necessarily supported by her family as a career. She explained, “Growing up in Lubbock, I just didn't really have many examples of what it looked like to be an artist. I didn't know how to do it. Nobody in my family really understood. I was told, ‘Art is a good hobby to have, but you need to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer.’”

Keeping art as a side passion throughout her childhood and teen years by drawing and painting, she eventually went to the University of Texas in Austin for Psychology and a minor in Fashion Design. Despite her ongoing desire to pursue art, the family pressure didn’t stop. This is a common trope for kids who feel the weight of their family’s expectations, especially in how they reflect the American dream and what defines “success.” Since art is not necessarily something that can be tangibly “successful” in a way that everyone understands (immediate wealth, status, clear cut job, etc.), Okoro decided to go to law school at Texas Southern in Houston.

Even throughout law school, Okoro continued to make art and began immersing herself in the Houston art community. She reflected, “I met people that are still mentors and friends to this day. When I graduated from law school, I thought, ‘I just don't want to do this. I want to be an artist.’ There were lots of roller coaster twists and turns from there for me to end up being an artist now.” Coincidentally, Okoro has a similar story to Adela Andea, her counterpart at the Houston expansion.

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Okoro’s style is vibrant, colorful and visionary. It also brings subculture into a public eye in a way that is not voyeuristic, but rather, deeply understanding and admiring. She explained, “Growing up in Lubbock, which is a smallish city - very flat, like hardly any trees, very conservative, very dry, I always felt different in a way that I didn't understand. I just knew I didn't fit in. I just wanted to see more in the world. I think that’s why I was drawn to punk culture. I went to a high school that had a group of kids that were skaters, punks, musicians in bands.” There is a thread here in these alternative practices of self-expression: no one felt particularly understood. This is what makes them create something outside of a mainstream lens, something that rejects small-town repression. They exist as a way to actively defy what is expected of them. 

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This is what excites Okoro - why people perform the way that they do. She said, “I'm really drawn to people's fashion and how they express themselves, so a lot of times the people that I'll paint are my friends that I find interesting or people that I'm just now meeting - I just like to paint people that I find interesting.” In her show Punk Noir, Okoro showcased Afropunk and Afro-futurism through mixed media pieces that celebrated Black musicians, filmmakers, photographers and other creatives. The exhibit was a powerful display of punk as it was always meant to be: “anti-establishment by nature” and de-centering whiteness.

Okoro explained, “In the Punk Noir show, I painted a lot of Black people who I was friends with, that I felt had a punk spirit, even if they didn't necessarily define themselves as punk. I was trying to capture a certain energy and put it all together in one room. I'm inspired by that past work I did, so there'll be some reflections of that in this [Houston] space. I wanted to channel a sort of mosh pit for this Meow Wolf collaboration.”

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Though we can’t share too much about the Meow Wolf exhibition, to know that there will be an essence of a mosh pit inside of something that exists outside of space and time is… exhilarating. But for Okoro, it isn’t just about the energy and excitement of what a mosh pit cultivates. She also wants people to feel as if they are seeing themselves in her art – to make sure that marginalized people can feel welcome in alternative spaces without feeling like it is not theirs, when in reality, it was always theirs to begin with. 

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While Okoro has mostly worked as a solo artist, she explained, “This is the most collaborative thing I've ever worked on with access to lighting people and sound engineers, technical directors, all kinds, so I was a little bit nervous at first, but everything has really come together really, really nicely. So far, it's been a really, really good experience.”

Okoro’s work is a testament to resisting the norm, not just by rejecting it altogether, but envisioning something entirely new. It is rooted in Afrofuturism, a movement that connects Black liberation to the future and what can be, through art. Whether you see her work at a solo exhibition or at the new Meow Wolf Houston, there is no doubt you’ll be inspired to dream alongside her.