A cup of coffee is simply a lively start to many breakfast tables, but for Nigerian hyperrealist artist Ekene Ngige, coffee is a natural working medium that has become his signature trademark-paintings that embody the essence and aroma of coffee itself.
His show This Little Light of Mine, currently at the BoConcept Nairobi, located at The Address, is an exploration of a style and technique that is yet to gain traction across the African continent; a bold and explicit gamble by an outstanding artist making waves in the visual art scene.
Growing up in Lagos, Ekene recalls being a painter from childhood, his education was curated around improving what he knew from a young stage that he wanted to do all his life, painting. His journey first started with painting with acrylics and watercolours. ‘I needed to stand out because when I looked around, I saw a lot of gifted artists doing hyper realism work in Nigeria, it was almost like we were all doing the same thing. There was a need for my art to be able to stand on itself and speak my name. As time went on, I experimented with different medium- water colours, shoe polish. My first exhibition launched a café in an airport and it gave me a relationship with coffee,’ he says.
After this experience and subsequent interactions with the franchise as part of the branding team, Ekene would fall in love with the coffee spirit. He would later on go back to his studio and make a gel out of coffee which he used to make a painting; an experience he lauds as fantastic.
‘I fell in love with coffee as a drink but to be able to create something out of a beverage I loved so much which even retained the aroma of coffee was mind blowing for me. I felt it was the unique style that I had been looking for and therefore decided to keep it.’
Later on, he went online to look for kindred spirits and recalls stumbling into a Russian, some Americans and Europeans and a couple of Brazilians.
‘I get my inspiration from things happening around me. I wanted to paint more of Africa. I wanted to paint stories that lie ignored, stories that bear history and advocate for specific rights,’ he says.
In terms of solubility, coffee provides a versatile medium for Ekene to paint his subjects. His use of watercolours combined with acrylics and coffee results in works with strong, rich tones of melanin that stands out from shades of ebony across different mediums.
In his paintings, he primarily uses instant coffee, which is more soluble and has a smoother texture. Sometimes, he uses coffee alone, but at other times he employs coffee bean rolls to create patterned mosaics and textures in his murals.
Ground coffee, however, does not feature in his palette because it leaves particles behind. For him, coffee is a unique medium because it carries a vibrancy not found in most colours; he describes it as a dye that can stay on paper or canvas for a very long time.
‘Coffee has been different from the moment I first discovered it as a medium. From my first piece, it attracted different kinds of reactions, especially from people who understood the coffee culture, which isn’t so strong in Nigeria as it is in Kenya or America. It makes me stand out because when you think about coffee and think about art, you think about me, which is amazing,’ he says.
For an artist who lives with a disability, Ekene remains nonplussed about how it affects his creativity.
‘It changes nothing with regard to my creativity. What it does is simply limit my movement from one location to another. I don’t go out or move around a lot. I prefer to stay and move within my energy and use it to create art. That has been the only major challenge I have had.’
This Little Light of Mine is a continuation of the theme whose body of works was first showcased in Lagos, Nigeria last year. It was inspired by Ekene’s personal experience as a disabled person.