Collins Obijiaku

Collins Obijiaku (b. 1995, Kaduna, Nigeria)uses portraiture to create intimate records of Blackmen and women, capturing their essence whether they are strangers, acquaintances, orindividuals he meets on the streets.His unique blendof colors, textures, and patterns bringsindividuals to life on the canvas, capturing a sense of their lives and experiences while alsoimmortalizing them and celebrating their identity. Obijiaku’s portraits feature Black subjects whogaze directly at theviewer, fostering a discursive, two-way interaction. Utilizing various materials,including oil, acrylic, and charcoal, he crafts rich textures, soft gradients, and intricate lineworkthat, when viewed up close, resemble cartographical arrangements. Thesedetails create amesmerizing effect through concurrent and collinear lines that symbolize life's unpredictablejourney. Obijiaku’s technique involves beguiling brushstrokes that hold the viewer’s gaze in acaptivating embrace, evoking notions of identity,space, and patterns. His portraits serve asintimate records of his community, blending elements of typographical precision with expressiveartistry. This deliberate interplay of lines and textures in Obijiaku’s work makes each portrait apowerful celebration of existence and identity, capturing the richness of Black lives and theirstories.