‘Sometimes poverty helps you discover your talent’

Can you tell us how you came about arts? I was born and bred in Benin City, the ancient city of art in Nigeria. I started drawing when I was a child using my books. Then in my primary school days, my mother used to beat me for using my books to draw. But my […]

Can you tell us how you came about arts?
I was born and bred in Benin City, the ancient city of art in Nigeria. I started drawing when I was a child using my books. Then in my primary school days, my mother used to beat me for using my books to draw. But my teacher would encourage and advise me not to use my books until I got a drawing pad. As I grew up, I never planned to be a professional artist. When you ask the average child today what he wants to be when he grows up, he or she will say engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc. But between ages 11 to 18, I became so good making money through portrait painting and was encouraged to go into art professionally because there is money it. So I applied to the Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, in 2003 prelim and passed into National Diploma. I was doing great in school but had no support I had to depend on making portrait and handmade cards. That’s why I encourage youths of today to be creative in any way because your parents can go broke tomorrow and you will need to fend for yourself. Learn something before going to school; hair dressing, barbing, bead making. I finished my ND in Painting and General Arts and furthered to HND in sculpture. During my ND programme, one of my lecturers saw that I was good, he took me in and brushed me up. I will never forget Mr Ehizele Paul because when I planned to do my HND in painting, he advised me to take on a new challenge in sculpting.
 I was scared initially but I took courage and once I started, it became so easy as if I were drawing with clay and metal. I produced pieces in clay and cement what I can produce in drawing. The only difference is sculpture is mainly on 3D. I enjoyed it and won the 2009 Rectors Award of Excellence in Sculpture. My  life has been a testimony since that time I became an all round artist my friends call me Michael Angelo because I can sculpt and paint as a professional.

What materials did you first use when you started off painting?
When I started painting, I started using poster colours, which is the primary level of painting before you can graduate using oil colours or Acrylic or any other materials to paint.

Your style seems rather unusual. How did you come about it?
Sometimes it is said that when you are poor, you discover your talent. I started using raw charcoal due to lack of cash to buy painting materials, which are quite expensive. One day, I was about to make a portrait painting on canvas and had no pencil to sketch the image first. I saw charcoal around me and I just used it to do the sketch. A friend of mine, Femi Williams, saw it and said I love this drawing like this so I said, I am about to paint the way he loved it. I saw the beauty too from that day and I tried it more and more. I just go to where they are frying akara and pick charcoal. It is all about using waste to make wealth. That was how I started raw charcoal on canvas.

Which artists have influenced your works?
Basically the one man that made me, and he is a great artist, a lecturer at Auchi Poly till date, Mr Paul Ehizele. He influenced not just my work but my life. He has influenced so many great artist today that passed through him, to the point I left my house and was staying with him alongside my friend Steve Ekpenisi. When he draws, I am left in shock. I told myself I am going to be better and he always pray I should be better and today it’s showing.

And this style has seen you win the Spanish Art Competition. How important is winning the prize for you?
The Spanish prize is one I always dreamt of winning because the winner will be sponsored to Madrid to visit an annual art show called ARCO. It is worth more than a million naira and it was the 10th year. It is a great moment in my life. I did my drawing with prayers to God that I need this and it was my first time to enter. I submitted and later got an email that I was one of the three finalists. Being third or second would have been nice. Winning that prize was my starting point. I was so happy never could explain my feelings.

Can you explain to us the work that won the prize? What inspired it and why did you chose to enter it for the competition?
Every year, the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria brings out a theme for their art competition and have had nine winners with different themes. This year, the theme was about celebrating a Spanish artist based in Mali; we should pick any of his works and let the work influence ours. So I picked one of Miguel Basalo’s work “The Shenghai Market” poster and made my own market scene and titled it the Fourth Day Market. The Fourth Day Market is all about the village market that is going into extinction. The average Nigerian, one way or the other, might have come across the fourth day market most especially in the villages where the market holds. It is a day where the best is sold and the best is bought.

As part of winning the prize, you were sponsored to Spain for a tour. How will this influence your future works?
Attending ARCO in Madrid will surely influence my future works because this encouraged me to work harder to win more awards. Thanks to the Spanish Embassy, the tour to Spain was one of a kind. It opened my mind and I saw works I had never seen before. It was a great experience.

Having won this prize now, where do you see yourself as an artist in the next five years?
I see myself in front of young people aspiring to be great and see them grow in future as I am doing already. Before I won the prize, I created a platform called the Creative Ideas Initiative. We have many members on Facebook. It is a platform of creative minds. We make young hearts grow to be creative in order to reduce crime in our society.

There has been increased interest in Nigerian arts. What do you think is responsible for this?
Art is life, art is rhythm, art is beauty. One way or the other, art is related to every profession. We need art to survive. Spain is designed in art so everyone needs art. When I see the increased number of artists in Nigeria, I just think we need more, we need to beautify Nigeria like other countries, like Spain. We need our government to think art and tourism. Art is still growing in Nigeria.

Do you think that artists in the country get as much appreciation from Nigerians as they deserve?
Capital NO. Artist in Nigeria are neglected, they see us as nobody unlike in other countries like Spain, art and tourism is their greatest resource. They celebrate their artists, they see them as unique. I was there at the ARCO show in Madrid and I saw the King of Spain in attendance. I never knew he is the king because he appeared very simple. You see he is the sole organizer of the show, just like in Benin City they use the art to represent the Oba. We all know the story but the fever of oil has eaten so deep that you hardly see our leaders attending art shows even in Abuja. All they think is oil. In Lagos, the artists at the National Theater were dislodged. I saw it in the papers and felt fear for us. If you try that elsewhere, you are gone. So artist don’t get much appreciation in Nigeria.