Arinze Stanley Egbengwu (b. 1993) In Lagos, Nigeria and graduated from Imo State University with a degree in agricultural engineering. Starting at an early age of 6, Arinze had always been enthusiastic about drawing realistic portraits on paper. Being exposed to his family’s paper conversion business, arinze grew to love paper and pencils as his toys at a very tender age. Over the years he gradually taught himself how to harness both pencils and paper in harmony as a medium to express himself through what he calls his three p’s namely patience, practice and persistence. These have guided him throughout his journey as an artist.
Using hyper-realism as a tool and inspired by his personal experiences living in Nigeria, Arinze drives at creating art that triggers a degree of emotional connection between his viewers and the stories in his artworks which mostly gears towards social and political activism. As a completely self-trained artist Arinze has an incredible skill to caputre the minute details of an expression. Each piece takes about one month for him to complete. He also works in multiple series of drawings that communicate his beliefs. His “Paranormal Portraits” series is a direct criticism of the oil industry in Nigeria. The “People and Paper” series is inspired by the experience of being born and raised in Africa and feeling “caged within your own existence.” In his “Mindless” series it depicts figures pulled and altered by the multiple pairs of hands. The work represents different influencing forces such as politics, religion, and family.
“My art is born out of the zeal for perfection both in skill, expression and devotion to create positive changes in the world. I draw inspiration from life experiences and basically everything that sparks a feeling of necessity, I find myself spending countless hours working on an artwork to stimulate deep and strong emotions in order to connect more intimately with my viewers. Most times it’s almost like I lose control of my pencils and the art flows through me to the paper.”