The Art Corner: Chigozie Obi
from Lagos Nigeria, the artist sits with us for a conversation on blackness, identity and the artistic process.
One day I sat contemplating the sea in search of a practical answer to the human experience: what makes us human? After watching my mind take many turns, I realised the one thing that differentiates us from other living beings is our ability to create art. Whilst nature and animals have a finite artful existence, human beings have taken their own existence, recreated it through their eyes, and made it transcendental with art.
There is honesty in art, and whilst not everyone relates to every art style, I believe all humans can relate to an artful existence, for it is innate. The purpose of this column is to explore narratives through the eyes of creative beings.
There is honesty in art, and whilst not everyone relates to every art style, I believe all humans can relate to an artful existence, for it is innate.
Our first stop is in Lagos, Nigeria, where we meet Chigozie Obi, a young artist that “aims to create sustained conversations about people and society — the cultural narratives adopted and how they affect people in it, especially women.”
In a concerto of reality, Obi’s paintbrush is the instrument to weave her own narratives and tell the world as she sees it. When I first saw the series Shades of Black, I was immediately captivated by its power.
“My work is very inclusive of black people, it is on black people, but I didn’t colour all types of black people,” Obi tells me, explaining how the series came about.
“That is what gave birth to the inclusion of people with Albinism in my work. It occurred to me that this might be part of the discrimination they face when people think about black people.”
“People with albinism are often discriminated against in our society. In our interactions with them, we tend to forget they are just as black as the rest of us, the only difference being the lack of melanin pigment in their skin. In addition to this, there is little representation of albinism in mainstream media. This series pushes for change in the way we treat and view one another, never forgetting that no one is less African or Black because of their skin tone, and should not be treated as such.”
In the process of bringing the series to life, Obi went on social media and asked the people around her for help. Through those avenues, she found people with Albinism to model for her, “I either went to their place or invited them to my own studio, took photos of them which I used in the series but also my work in general”
“I wanted to show that there are different shades of black and that the inclusion of people with albinism in the conversation around black people is fundamental”. She wanted, through the paintings, to tap into their experience.
“The process was actually quite tedious because I am used to painting darker skin tones. Painting fairer skin tones can be easy but it can get difficult making it prominent that the figures are people with albinism and not just lightskin or white people, the line between that is very thin sometimes.”
“I had to be careful with their hair textures and mixing their skin tones. I am still learning but working on this series opened my eyes and made me push for more, like painting people with disabilities and people of all sizes. I decided to take this concept and expand it in the rest of my work because as long as my work is about black people, I need it to be inclusive.”
Obi’s personal experiences and emotions are the nurturing factors to her work, she is inspired by everyday life and humans, and the problems that affect her and other young people.
And in fact, this is the work of the artist: to weave the people’s narrative through her own. As Alice Walker so wisely says in one of her essays “The artist then is the voice of the people, but she is also The People.”
**
Chigozie Obi’s next series are tackling topics of rape and loss. You can follow her work on her website or Instagram.
