10 Questions with Uzomah Ugwu

Uzomah Ugwu is a poet/writer, multi-disciplined artist, and curator. Her poetry, writing, and art have been featured internationally in various publications, galleries, and art spaces. She is a political, social, and cultural activist. Her core focus is on human rights, mental health, animal rights, and the rights of LGBTQIA persons. She is also the managing editor and founder of Arte Realizzata.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Uzomah's motivation to make art, whether it's visual or with words or both, is to form an expression that is authentic to her and those who identify with the same things that others see as limitations, like being a person with disabilities. Her journey is a told one with different colors, brushes, descriptions, and usage of words. Through the photographic lenses, she is able to display the challenges and embraces of being in a society not yet understanding of her nature or others like her. She holds her own strings, yet she is tied to a society that tangles her. With art, she is free and open and no longer self-involved. Her efforts are motions completed to something and for something bigger. Her motivation, time and time again, is to say something visually that allows others to speak or just utter their own truths, not just her own.
Uzomah can address society and what it thinks of her and be who she is with any color she chooses to use and not what is expected of her through the creative process. Through art, her illnesses are not a hindrance but a welcoming asset and also a way for others to understand what she goes through. Also, there is a divine beauty with it all rather than it being a great tragedy. With one stroke or installation idea, she is not someone's else tragedy or her illnesses; she is a part of her own masterpiece that others can gain enjoyment from and understanding. She also explores social and cultural issues, such as human rights, LGBTQIA rights, animal rights, and political issues, through her color choice, sculptures, installations, and photos.
She believes there is hope in the created darkness if we believe in the light. Lastly, her art addresses those rays of light and society's darkness by showing through a lens or a stroke of a brush an ability to push through the debris in life.

Air traffic, acrylic, 16x20 in, 2019 © Uzomah Ugwu

INTERVIEW

First of all, how would you describe yourself and your work?

Bruce Lee created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do where minimal effort with maximum effect was essential. He combined all styles from other martial arts and other forms of fighting like using the footwork of Muhammad Ali. He stated, "When one has no form, one can be all forms." I genuinely find that is how to describe my work, mainly because some of the greats influenced me and how they still influence me. In writing or visual art, I do not want to confine myself to the art of others so much that I lose myself and embrace their style more than finding and tending to my own. But where would I be or any artist without them? However, to quote Lee again, who said, “The highest art is no art. The best form is no form.” So I am all styles because I have none.

Why are you an artist, and when did you first become one?

I am an artist because I need to survive. Without a breath of creativity, I do not know where I would be or who I would be. I have been creating ever since I can remember. Art opened doors in me that others would not let be. It has always been an outlet for being a subjected outcast in school and society. There has always been an art retreat, and there was a time I stopped doing it. I was lost and did not realize my loss until I found myself painting, writing, drawing, sculpting, and holding a camera again.

Abyss, acrylic, 12x12 in, 2020 © Uzomah Ugwu

You are a poet and writer and multidisciplinary artist. How do poetry and writing influence your current work?

"Writing" influences my work heavily because I do both visual and writing at the same time. There is no period where I do not do both simultaneously. I place words with poetry so that the poem, essay, short story, or screenplay form a canvas, installation, or mural. The words come together like the colors found in everyday life and give life on a canvas. Knowing their place and purpose creates a central visual theme for the audience and provides me with a finished product that expresses my artistic statement. With the visual arts and literary arts, my message, which is often a muted voice, is heard.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? Do you have any routine or set of actions that help you get in the right zone to create?

I think the correct zone is when you feel. Any feeling you get that makes you want to create and create openly and be accessible is the right zone.

How do you choose the colors you work with, and how do you combine and mix them?

Honestly, they chose me. Art finds me the moment the emotion pours through, and together we express the idea that comes from within.

Charles and I, acrylic, 24x36 in, 2020 © Uzomah Ugwu

Miracle stars, acrylic, 36x36 in, 2021 © Uzomah Ugwu

What are your sources of inspiration? Do you have any artist or artistic movement that particularly influences your work?

My mom and dad are my muses. They both use both sides of their minds as thinkers, which makes them unique visual creators with their words and how they express their ideas and perceptions of any given situation. I have gotten so much inspiration from them in just conversations with them. They introduced art and music to me at a very young age with art and music, whether it was my dad bringing art from Africa or my mom putting prints of artists like Gauguin and Monet in the house. I observed as a young girl how my mom used colors as an artist uses them on a canvas. The yard was her canvas, and she planted each flower like a painter placed each color until they had completed their masterpiece.
My parents use words so vividly that they create visual conversations that are interactive and ones you can see. Dan Graham heavily influences the design side of me and my process that has a deep love for architecture, and is a brilliant writer as well. Duane Michals is a significant factor in how I see the world through a lens, also Joan Mitchell due to her abstract creations, Edmonia Lewis, and Augusta Savage impact how I hold the world in my hands and sculpt my artistic statement and form it and how Picasso used lines. The artistic movement that I find myself immersed in is Cubism.

What's the essential element in your art?

Freedom of ideas to be able to clash without judgment and unite without the presence of fear is the essential element. Creativity birthed out of love is a graphic element that is essential in my art.

Bright Tires, acrylic, 20x20 in, 2021 © Uzomah Ugwu

Do you find that the shift to digital exhibitions and art fairs has helped you promote your work?

I think the shift was coming whether the pandemic happened, and many galleries and art organizations were preparing for the transition. It has helped me because it allowed my art to go to audiences that in-person galleries could only reach and reach people who never thought of themselves in a gallery. With the internet, you can be in the USA but see artists from Asia or Africa just like you would see them in person.

What do you think about the art community and market?

It is fickle, it likes what it likes one moment, and in a moment, it can change. For the better, I can not say, for the truth is subjective, and that is the beauty of art, its appeal to so many different people, and how it means so much to so many other people in different ways from different directions in life. One person could like this piece of art, and a second can find no connection with the work, then a third could not understand it, and the fourth could say it's the most fantastic thing they have seen. Of course, the great works of art do not adhere to that prior statement because it isn't in the eye of the beholder when it comes to a masterpiece; it is something that is timeless and is available for all to see.

Finally, any projects you are looking forward to for this year?

I am currently curating a show with a gallery in Greece, so I am excited about that.

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