Francisca Onumah is a Sheffield-based Ghanian-born silversmith and jeweller who has received significant recognition for her extraordinary work in metal. Onumah trained at Birmingham City University gaining a BA and MA in Jewellery and Silversmithing in 2015. In 2020 she was part of the Crafts Council Hothouse Talent Programme and was awarded a Jerwood Makers Open commission in 2022 with Helena Russell. Her work has been exhibited in a range of important exhibitions including ‘Mastery: Women In Silver’ at the Ruthin Crafts Centre in 2021, the ‘Maker’s Eye: Stories of Craft’ and ‘We Gather’ exhibitions at the Crafts Council in 2021 and 2022, and ‘Radical Acts’ at Harewood House in 2022. She is represented by Flow Gallery and Galerie Revel and her work is in the permanent collections of the Sheffield Assay Office, Cannon Hall Museum in Barnsley and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

Onumah is drawn to finding character and human-like semblance in inanimate objects and creates ambiguous vessels and jewellery that reflect vulnerabilities and strengths through their tactile anthropomorphic forms. Working from sheet metal, she obsessively layers different mark making techniques through repetitive hammering, folding and impressing patterns onto the surface of the metal. She has a particular interest in African textiles, such as batik work or the marbled tie-dye of Kenyan kitenge an interest which she developed during her childhood in Ghana, and is drawn to fabrics with rich pattern, a visible weave or textiles which show evidence of their handmaking. This interest and her love of carved woods inspires her approach to mark making on the surface of the metal, through which she has developed a distinct tactile language. Moreover, seams and expressive marks, features which tend to be polished away, are exposed and exaggerated. Through these so called ‘imperfections’ she aims to challenge the hierarchical nature of silversmithing by seeing beauty in these marks and bear honest witness to the heat and force of making. The figurative objects are finished with dark oxidisation and subdued silver finishes and are grouped together as if in quiet conversation.

Murmur IV and Murmur VI were shown at Collect 2023 by Galerie Revel and both pieces were made by hand raising sheet metal and decorating the surface with a textured hammer and fold forming. Murmur IV is made from silver plated copper that has been oxidised and Murmur VI is made from Britannia silver. Together these two anthropomorphic vessels demonstrate Onumah’s sophisticated language and manipulation of material across both metals.