ALEXIS GALLERIES

Between Us, 2015, Acrylic on Canvas, 120 x 200 cm

Nigerian-German artist Chidi Kwubiri lives and works in Pulheim, Germany. Born in Umuahia in 1966, Kwubiri fled his home with his family to escape the Biafran War, and managed to train himself to be an artist and make a living from it from his teenage years onwards. He would go on to study painting at the Dusseldorf Art Academy under Prof. Michael Buthe and earn an MFA under Prof. A.R. Penck. He has since held multiple solo shows all over the world and has had work shown at various international art exhibitions including the Casablanca, Venice and Florence Biennales.

Métaphore, Mixed on Burnt Wood, 210 x 35 x 35 cm

Self-taught artist Nathanaël Vodouhè (b. 1986) began drawing at an early age in the hope of memorialising a lost one, and went on to hone his skills at various workshops and residencies (Belgium, Morocco, Senegal). His paintings, installations and totemic sculptures in particular are informed by the history and traditions of Benin, and share a poetic and spiritual quality that draws viewers into his interior world and invites them to reflect on issues underpinning human alienation, such as our exploitation of one another for selfish gains, our entrapment in the rat race, and the hollowing out of our humanity for material possessions.

Gele #1, 2021, Charcoal and Graphite on Paper, 213 x 152 cm

Arinze Stanley Egbengwu (b. 1993) is an Imo State University graduate and Nigerian artist known for creating hyper-realistic pencil and charcoal portraits of black subjects that embody the complex emotions associated with the contemporary black experience. He began drawing at the age of six, and developed his photorealistic style by employing what he calls his three Ps: patience, practice and persistence. He spends up to four months on a single portrait, registering his subjects’ emotions as completely as possible in order to generate an emotional connection between his audience and his work, which is largely geared towards social and political activism.