Nigerian artist Ken Nwadiogbu on migration, African art and working with Burna Boy

euronews (in English)

Euronews Culture sat down with Ken Nwadiogbu, a visionary artist who is preparing to showcase his solo presentation 'Journey Mercies: A Migration Symphony' at ART SG later this month.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 My name is Ken Mwadiubu.

00:15 I am a multidisciplinary artist from Nigeria.

00:19 I'm now based in London.

00:21 I stayed in Nigeria for quite a while, for 20,

00:25 25 years of my life.

00:27 And back home, you never have the sense of or the idea

00:31 that you're a migrant, because you're home.

00:34 The moment I stepped out of Nigeria,

00:36 that's when I started to realize--

00:38 that's when I started to see that I'm a black person,

00:44 I'm a black man, that I'm an African man.

00:46 And for me, I like to think of where

00:51 I am mentally, socially, politically.

00:54 And I like to address it, talk about it, bring it into my work.

00:59 And so at this time, I see a huge conversation that can come

01:03 from me being an immigrant.

01:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:09 So in Lagos, if you're walking down the road,

01:20 you'd see artworks by incredible artists on the roadside.

01:24 So I think that was basically the earliest introduction

01:30 I had with art.

01:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:34 When I start to paint, I start to think,

01:37 what's the best thing to represent?

01:40 It's the eyes.

01:41 Because in some way, I'm letting people

01:43 see through the painting and see almost the soul of the person

01:49 or the soul of the character I'm trying to represent.

01:51 It almost became like a conversation

01:53 you have with the painting.

01:55 Because when you look at someone eye to eye,

01:56 there's an energy that kind of flows in.

01:58 And the person feels real.

02:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:04 So for the abstract work, I'm always

02:05 trying to play with colors that are

02:08 nostalgic to Africa, to my hometown--

02:12 the red, the blue, the yellow, the green.

02:15 I want to look at it and feel like, oh, yeah,

02:17 that feels like Nigeria to me.

02:19 That feels like Ghana to me.

02:20 That feels like South Africa to me.

02:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:27 Thanks to incredible artists like Vito Ikemeno, Nengi Umuku--

02:33 so many incredible artists who have paved the way for us.

02:37 They've brought African art to a global stage.

02:42 It helps us as upcoming artists to be

02:45 able to tune into that frequency and also

02:48 be part of that conversation, be part of that journey

02:52 that these people have kind of started before us.

02:54 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:58 (upbeat music)

03:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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