I guess of lot of us African kids grew up watching Disney cartoons with no representation of us at all. We never imagined princess could be black with afro hair. All we saw was Cinderella, Snow white and the seven dwarfs and others. The only black princess we saw was in a cartoon while growing up was, The princess and the frog which was not popular like the others. The mainstream media was bereft of black princesses and I saw it as a huge gap to be closed.
This huge gap was what I think gave birth to my passion for arts. I have always loved art since I was a child but I got serious with it in 2016 when I discovered digital art. I chose digital art because it was very different from the art I was used to. During that time, digital art wasn’t as popular as it is now. I think I can comfortable say that the difference was the point of attraction.
The next phase was pursuing my dreams hands down. Kicking off was somewhat difficult. I had a few people that liked the idea but no one really cared as much. There are times when I do get tired and just want to take a break but it has never gotten to the point where I would say I want to give up. I think I love it too much to get to that point.
After a while, I found out that that the more I practiced, the better I became. Talent is never enough. It took a lot of consistency and hard work to get to where I am now. I never had a point where I felt I was made for the art. For me, it’s a continuous discovery of potentials. Each milestone was full of improvements. One of my works that went somewhat viral was a drawing I posted on social media. The posting was done randomly and the next day when I woke up, I was greeted with thousands of likes, comments and shares. I could say that one of the moments my work went somewhat viral.
Right now, my entire style hinges on bringing Western style of arts into African culture. My goal is to make black arts and legendary cartoon characters more mainstream such that Africans will find a connection with these characters. There are a lot of creative people out there that do very cool art works in bringing black characters into the forefront and I am glad to be part of them. With my works, I am trying to change the narrative of inculcating black arts into the mainstream media.
