Uche Uzorka is a Nigerian artist born in 1974 in Delta State. He came to art fairly late, starting to draw in secondary school and trying sculpture and clay before settling on drawing and painting. He studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, majoring in painting (Wikipedia gives 2001 as his graduation year; one press article says 2004). His practice mixes painting, collage, cut-and-paste methods, charcoal and ink drawing, and is driven by the energy of urban street life: crowds, congestion, noise and the rhythm of the city. In 2011 he shared first prize in Nigeria's National Art Competition with Chike Obeagu for a jointly made work, and the same year he moved to Lagos for a residency at the African Artists' Foundation (AAF). With AAF he held two solo shows: 'The Organic' at the Goethe-Institut Nigeria (October 2012) and 'Line.Sign.Symbol' (early 2013). The latter was a set of large ink drawings in black, red and blue, with loose, fast lines from which abstract figures, words and drips emerge. Critics compared it to Basquiat and placed it between figuration and abstraction. His work has also been shown in the United States, Germany and Cuba, and is represented by Art Twenty One in Lagos. He belongs to the Nsukka-trained generation that moved Nigerian drawing towards a more urban, gestural language.
School or movement: Nsukka-trained contemporary; urban mixed media / drawing.
Influenced by Lagos urban street culture.
