Gerald Chukwuma: Nigerian man who rose from street hawker to become world-famous artist
Gerald Chukwuma is a notable Nigerian visual artist who uses his arts to address the challenges of climate change; he turns waste into works of art.
Chukwuma began his career as a painter but after years of working with materials on the ground, he started making arts out of waste.
Chukwuma is a graduate of Nsukka Art School at the University of Nigeria with a first-class degree in painting.
The world-famous artist uses wastes such as old mobile charge cards and empty soft drink cans for his arts.
Source: UGC
He told True Africa that he ‘upcycles’ because of the lack of recycling in Nigeria.
"They’re beautiful, they’re durable, and they’ve got colours. They’re like a palette for me," Chukwuma said.
Chukwuma's love for arts dated back to his childhood days when he would draw comics and cover his bedroom walls in paintings of Donald Duck.
Though his parents made him to study marketing at a polytechnic institute, the great visual artist opted out after two years, without telling his parents, enrolled himself in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to study art.
To finance his education, having gone against his parents' wish, Chukwuma resorted to hawking.
"It was tough, but I loved this art. There’s nothing else that makes me happier. My life is art," he said.
With no money to rent a decent apartment and the need to use the little he had for his education, Chukwuma lived underneath a tree.
"I used to uproot cassava and roast it over fire in the bush just to have something to eat. I didn’t have money! I had to pay my school fees," he said.
Source: UGC
From a very humble beginning, Chukwuma has risen to become a renowned visual artist. He is now becoming an entrepreneur and plans to spend more time producing ‘Afro-contemporary furniture.’
He has set up a factory and he is planning to employ up to 100 artists in the factory over the next decade.
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Earlier, Legit.ng reported the story of Kareem Waris Olamilekan, an 11-year-old Nigerian artist, who received Taiwan's Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation’s 22nd Fervent Global Love of Lives Award.
The young hyperrealistic artist defeated 2,723 others across the world to clinch the prize.
The disclosure of the boy’s wining was made by Ambassador Vincent Yang, the representative of Taiwan in Nigeria.
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