This post is part of Edition #1 – Primer.
I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria.
I can’t remember a time where I have never enjoyed sketching. But in 2015, a close friend pointed me to the work of Victor Ekpuk, and the complex meanings visible beneath the seeming simplicity of his works struck something in me. From that moment, I started thinking of creating simple single line forms to depict complex emotions that we are all familiar with.
I’m in a place where I am presently experimenting with other techniques, but I’m also playing with the use of a few words to show people how easily connected otherwise unrelated things are. I’m also presently focusing on creating figurative work with pointilism, which is a painstaking process that I hope strengthens my centre of calmness .
Everything that happens is life, and how you decide to look at it and act on it is up to you.
Joseph Ogbeide
Given that we are living in the middle of an epidemic, I’m grateful to be alive. However, I’m quite stoic about life, while I have a view of what I may want the future to be, the only time that is malleable is now. I’m presently producing new work and hopefully it all fits in together.
What have you learned?
Two things:
Everything that happens is life, and how you decide to look at it and act on it is up to you.
Interrogate your values, think about the consequences of the actions your values might produce… You might not be as brilliant as you think.
Joseph Ogbeide is @qaywee on Instagram, follow him to keep up with his work.