Personal

born: 1964 Monrovia, Liberia

high school: Lagos, Nigeria

college: 1992, degree in Painting, Federal Polytechnic Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria

Professional Artist: 1995-2007, Lagos, Nigeria

exhibits: group and individual shows over the last 15 years including:

 

Will Ehi Obinyan's Journey to San Francisco

by Deborah Scripps, Associate Director, GarageGallery

Wilfred (Will) Ehi Obinyan was born on May 1 ,1964 in Logan Town, Bushrod Island, Monrovia. Monrovia is the capital of Liberia in West Africa. By 1979, he moved to Nigeria to continue his education for high school and eventually at the polytechnic college at Auchi, Edo State, in Midwestern Nigeria. While studying for what he thought would be a career in estate management he noticed how all the art students there were dressed in the coolest clothes and thought that’s what is want to do … paint and wear the hip clothes. He switched majors to art education and graduated with distinction in 1992 as a painting major.

Will began a year mandatory service for the Nigerian graphic arts department of the ministry of information in Sokoto State, northern Nigeria. In Ikeja, capital of Lagos State he became head of the concept/creative department for Citigate Advertising Agency. His real passion was to become a visual artist so by 1995 ,he set himself up as a studio artist. He has been busy ever since doing painting for private clients plus commision works for such companies as Federal Airports authority of Nigeria and Juno Foods Nigeria. At this time he also set up with fellow artist Enotie Ogbebor a Curio Studios for the Traditional and Digital Arts In Lagos.

He has had many solo and group exhibitions in Nigeria where his paintings, drawings and collages have become part of the African Contemporary art scene. He is known as a fantastic colorist using subjects as portraiture and landscape to explore the emotional force of color while emphasizing the absolute priority of the individual and his perceptions. The mask series heightens the drama of the fragile nature of these people. In an almost fluid sense we become invested in them as they are part of our unconscious selves. As we see, we must be engaged and committed to Africa as both a cursed and enchanted population struggles to gain their foothold in the new millennium.

Will came to San Francisco in August, 2006 to attend the Sausalito Arts Festival. He is living in the Bay Area presently as he contemplates his next question of what to paint.

 

Quintessance at Nimbus Art Centre , 2002, Lagos, Ten Years after;

"As a painter, Ehi is incredibly disciplined and mehodical in his approach to work. Not in the conventional way of going stratight from A-D(as most normal people would) Ehi prefers to go from A to C, saunter back to B then charge to D. One nevertheless gets the impression of the some method to his madness because laugh as you may, come 7:30am, Ehi always delivers", Chike Nwagbogu, Creative Director, Nimbus Art Centre.

Will Ehi Obinyan, Uncle