EBUBE
“My work looks to address some societal issues, the ones I feel, the ones I hear. ”
I am a self taught pencil artist from Nigeria. I like experimenting with colour to bring life and interest to a drawing, as sometimes pencil can be boring. I specialise in portraits and realism artwork.
I like to say I have been drawing from birth. It was always something I wanted to do, but my parents didn’t support this so I had to train myself to draw. It all started with animations and cartoons such as Tom and Jerry.
I didn't really have direction. Like, I knew I was intelligent but that was it. I didn't know the meaning of art and I didn't know the deep meaning. It was just shallow, I could draw and that was where it ended as a kid. When I was younger I had an intestine problem which required me to undergo surgery, and the doctors saved my life. My dad encouraged me to do medicine, and I was sort of inspired by how the doctors saved my life. Also I was told artists don’t have money and it would be a struggle. I applied for medicine but I ended up studying Zoology, even though I knew this was not what I was called to do.
Professionally I started drawing in my third year of university while on industrial training. I drew a portrait for a friend who actually paid me money, it was a shock that I could actually earn money from this talent. After this I started learning more, how to use different tools, how to add more tools and make my work more realistic. I also love painting but I think I'm attracted to black and white, maybe I like black and black is beautiful. Black and white is more natural and flows naturally to me. My inspirations come from black and white images, I get little inspiration from colorful fabrics.
Through my work I hope to achieve a lot of stories and messages, an artistic weapon. My work looks to address some societal issues, the ones I feel, the ones I hear. These are my inspiration as it is my environment.
My favorite artist is Kelvin Okafor, his attention to detail is mind boggling and you can see a calmness reflected in his works. Ibrahim Kokie has been a great inspiration to me and Arinze Stanley who is a known pencil artist in Nigeria.
If my children tell me that they want to study art, first of all I would ask, why do you want to study art? Like, do you really feel art can give you all you want in life? Art is more like a calling rather than just a profession. Are you ready to give your life to art? Anybody can be an artist but I believe it goes beyond one loving art, you have to live art. If my son tells me he wants to do art, I will say “Okay, time will tell”, I will allow life to push him towards or away from it.