AM: Are you a self-taught artist or did you attend art school?
Charity: I attended art school. As a child my parents got to see my enthusiasm for the arts and they encouraged me. In primary four, I knew I was going to study arts. Although in secondary school we were told arts wasn’t relevant and the arts teacher was told to stop coming to work. I don’t want to mention the word fired. I still pushed through by God’s grace, went to University of Port Harcourt, studied Fine Arts and Design, then went back again and got my masters.
AM: Would you advise someone to attend art school?
Charity: Definitely. I would really advise anyone interested to attend art school because it will provide you with a background, a foundation. Anyone who is practicing art, who did not study art will always feel something lacking, as if they are not really complete. Anyone who has an interest in art should go ahead and study it. It will give a good foundation, a good background. A pedestal for you to fly.
AM: What was support from your parents, extended family and friends like?
Charity: They really supported me, there was no friction, there was no hindrance. They were the ones who told me to go ahead with it.
AM: What’s your approach to your art: do you create for you, or for your audience?
Charity: My approach to art is to just bring out what’s in me. What I feel like bringing out. What I like. There are times you have clients who tell you what they want. In such cases, you work with their interest, at the same time, not leaving yours totally out. So there has to be a balance. I work for me and I work for my clients also.
AM: How do you go about creating new work, learning new skills and reinventing yourself? What’s your approach to generating creative ideas?
Charity: As an artist when you go to workshops, when you go to art exhibitions, you find reasons to improve, to step up your game. When I went to the Harmattan Workshop, I saw the need for textures. I like textures but I didn’t know how to go about making my work have textures until I went there and saw how to.
The second time I went to the workshop I was encouraged by Sam Ovraiti to stick to my style. There was a style I was trying to extend, something I started in my undergraduate level. It’s called squarism. I paint in squares. I dropped it and I was searching for other styles, but then I realized that that was indeed my style. I was encouraged to continue with this style at the workshop. I have fully gone back to it. My style is squarism. Whatever art, whatever topic I paint, I try to inculcate my style of painting in squares.
AM: When was this Harmattan Workshop?
Charity: The 2015 and 2018 editions in Agbarha Otor in Delta State.
AM: What currently inspires your work?
Charity: My inspiration is number one, from God. And then the environment. There are lots of things to paint, lots of things to shout about. Lots of things happening in the society. You want to make suggestions as an artist with your brush. You want to let out your own ideas.
There are times I see certain topics in a dream. Like I sleep and see a particular style of painting, a particular topic, a theme. My current inspiration is the environment, nature, the creations of God.
AM: Does it ever become easy for you?
Charity: It’s easy. Do you know why? It’s because anytime I paint, I am happy. At the end of the day when I go through the things I have done for the day and I realise I made a painting or paintings, it makes me happy. As it is right now, art actually foots my bills. I earn money through my art.
There are challenges of getting materials. I think that is just my challenge because every now and then I just have things on mind to do; new works that might require materials that are almost abstract, scarce to find.
AM: So you do not ever suffer from creative block?
Charity: No, I don’t. I refer to my previous sketches in addition to new ideas. When I have creative ideas, I just sketch them out so whenever I have the time and materials to make the works, I go on to create. The challenge for me is just getting materials because there are times you get ideas to do things and you can’t even find the material in the market. You have to search for it. So that’s my only challenge.
AM: What is your take on collaborating with other artists?
Charity: It is very good. It will help to increase the awareness of art in Port Harcourt, in fact the world. Most people are not aware of the essence of art and even artists. When there are collaborations, mini groups, it will create more awareness for people to know that art is very important to the society. Collaborations are necessary. We even want more of them here. We are not having as much as we should here in Port Harcourt.
