IN CONVERSATION WITH CHIDINMA NNOLI
I’m Chidinma Nnoli, a visual artist. I work primarily with oils but I also like to explore other mediums from time to time. I hold a B.A in fine and applied arts at the university of Benin, Nigeria.
Kunle: So, what inspires your style of art?
Chidinma: Well my style changes from time to time depending on how i want to express mylself, my current style of art is inspired by impressionism and renaissance art. My work has a lot of texture that is inspired by impressionism, I love impressions because a huge part of my work incorporates flowers, i see flowers as my safe space and using impressions allows me to be flexible with the way I potray the flowers. I particularly love the way renaissance figures are posed and I use black bodies cause its the colour of my skin, it potrays my existence and experiences properly.
Kunle: Did your upbringing influence your art?
Chidinma: Yes! A huge part of my art is influenced by the experiences I had growing up, Catholicism, patriarchy, fear etc. A huge part of my work if also based on conditioning. How we’re conditioned to think a certain way and we don’t question the cycle. I think the way we grow up is the way we end up treating people in the society and end up raising our kids. So I question societal structures and how that affects our lives and how we behave.
Kunle: So what excites you most in the creation process of your artwork?
Chidinma: The experiments! I love the experiments cause there’s a whole lot going on. Sketching, cutting stencils, textures sometimes collages. I kind of play around a lot of things and take out some things till I’m satisfied.
Plus I mostly use a pallette knife so the creation process is more flexible and spontaneous, My studio is usually a whole mess.
Kunle: Wow! That shows there’s a lot of work done in there.
Kunle: At what time during the creation process of your art does the title emerge?
Chidinma: It depends, I write poems and I make them into art pieces. This doesn’t happen all the time but I usually already have a theme connecting all the pieces together when I’m working on a series. So if a piece is born out of a poem I had written, I’d give it the title of the poem.
Kunle: Did you ever experience any setback in the art industry and if so how did you bounce back?
Chidinma: Well I haven’t yet cause I literally just started painting professionally in 2018. I’m just starting out but I really want to be consistent and not let any setback keep me down.
An artist friend once told me “you either do art or go home, there’s no in between” well, I’m not ready to go home.
Kunle: It’s like the military, you either go to war or Go home.
Chidinma: Of Course
Kunle: Is self-reflection difficult for an artist? What’s your view on that?
Chidinma: I think its different for every artist, it different for everyone. regardless of what you do. Its just difficult cause it allows us to be vulnerable.
And its more difficult for artists cause when we self reflect (if you’re an artist that paints based on emotions) people see our vulnerability on canvas and openly showing vulnerability is difficult.
Kunle: What impact are you making or planning to make in the art industry?
Chidinma: Well! as cliche as it might sound i really want my art impact humanity and cause change which is why I create what I create, to get people talking about the right things and act on them. I really want to impact the art scene with my experiments. I want to keep trying out new things.
Kunle: When you first started your career as an artist, what were your goals and how have they changed or grown over the years?
Chidinma: When I first started, the goal was to improve myself; keep painting till I get better at it but that kind of shifted with time. I started painting about things that mattered in a way that made people empathic and then i started looking out for platforms interested in what I had to say. It wasn’t about the skill anymore, it was connecting organically with people who had similar experiences with what I had created.
Kunle: As you know, art is very subjective in nature. I’m sure you’ve received both positive and negative feedback in your career, but what I want to know is how you handle the negative criticism?
Chidinma: I wouldn’t say it doesn’t get to me but I understand that people have their preferences and are allowed to love or hate whatever they choose to. If I get a negative feedback, I just know that my art wasn’t intended for you. I really work on constructive criticism though, I filter what works and what wouldn’t. There’s always a balance to these things and I just want to feel satisfied with what I’ve created at the end of the day.
Kunle: What advice would you give to artist out there?
Chidinma: Lol honestly the advice I’d give is “just paint!”.
Read, keep reading and never stop looking for ways to improve yourself
Kunle: Thank you for your time and cooperation. I wish you the best.
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