ManicWorld Magazine

– What is the story behind ‘Crowd in Jos’ and what made you spend 8 months on it?

Crowd in Jos is a political piece, and was inspired by a video taken during the pandemic, showing a crowd reclaiming embezzled palliatives in Nigeria. I had bought my first large canvas at the time I watched the video, and instantly knew I had to use it to make that event more than just a video that becomes lost to time. The painting serves as evidence of the decay in human compassion in Nigeria, and symbolically the world at large. I never imagined it would take me take 8 months to complete, but being able to see the improvements to my painting skills over the 8 months on a single canvas, and knowing I was creating an evidence of sort had me curious and excited till the very end. 

– So how much of your work do you think stemmed from social and political commentary and do you have other creative influences that are stronger than this?

While Crowd in Jos was political from the onset, a lot of of my work only gain their social, political and personal meanings during and after the creative process. For instance, a lot of my painting based in Nigeria features crowds of people while my UK based paintings lack that human element which looking back, I can say represents my social ties to both countries.

My strongest creative influence, however, is definitely the innate desire to create. I am constantly working on bringing something to fruition, if not by painting, by other avenues of creative expression. It is through the act of creating that all other meanings are born.

– When you talk about meaning, are there any recurring themes that you’ve noticed in your work recently?

Yes, I spent the second half of 2025 experimenting with my artistic expression for the first time in many years. I discovered a major recurring theme along the way, which is when I look at my art, I’m really starting to see myself. While I previously focused on photo-realism to depict real life, I now find myself depicting my real life and internal world through art, from the shortened amount of time I dedicate to each piece reflecting my busy life as a studying full time accountant, to developing blurring techniques to represent the oneness I feel with the universe. I’m focusing on colours, settings and events I’m naturally drawn to and arranging them on my canvases without a fully developed reference and noticing some interesting results.