I want to be...
Oil · 2017 475 views
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Details
- Category
- Painting
- Medium
- Oil
- Dimensions
- 36 × 36 in
- Year
- 2017
- Edition
- Unique piece
- Framed
- No
- Signed
- Yes
Every child around here has a dream to be a doctor, a lawyer, and engineer, a pilot. They have been told that that is what success is. Many parents tell their children that success is going to school, getting a degree, get a job sitting in an office. Most of these children don’t really know what a lawyer does, but they want to do these things because they want to be what their parents want them to be. Some of the children take their time to study hard. To go beyond what they can do just to impress their parents. It might not be what they really want to be. They have just been told that that is what they need to do to achieve success. I feel every child should have the right to choose what is good for him or her. In my own life, I always thought to be successful I had to get a degree and sit in an office where people come in and say “Oga” (boss). But it was never what I wanted. And I wasn’t cut out for it. I wasn’t good with words or numbers, but I was good with my hands. I loved to draw. Even if had gone to school to be a doctor, I might have just hid my results somewhere and did something else. I want to be an artist. I feel like every child has what they want to be – you don’t have to impose careers on children’s lives. All you need to do is make sure that you support them in whatever they choose. If it’s not what you want, just try to see the positivity in it. Try to shed some light on what they have decided they want to be. Just the power of your positivity can turn what they want to be into something actually great.
Many peacebuilding and development professionals work from their offices for governments or NGOs. Emerging artist Luka Chohu (also known as Lucho) works out of his own small compound in the community of Angwan Juma’a, Jos, Nigeria. This is a place where people “hustle” from morning till night to provide for their families – a place where art is generally not encouraged as a viable career path. To be sure, this artist does his fair share of hustling. But in between, he finds time to stretch old sheets over hand-made wooden frames to engage in his own form of peacebuilding and development work. From his small studio, Lucho fuses his artistic talent with his passion for social justice, to communicate the joys and challenges of everyday life in Nigeria; promote peaceful coexistence; and develop the capacities of those around him. His interest in art began in secondary school: “I always had a story to tell. But because I was not good with words or numbers, there was no way for me to tell it.” He therefore began using paint to express his own experiences and feelings. Following secondary school, Lucho moved to the capital to understudy Abuja-based artist, Kelvin Ubani. He then began using his new skills to move his art into broader themes of social justice, inter-identity peacebuilding and the beauty of Nigerian cultures. The purpose of Lucho’s work is twofold. First, using various media, his own art beautifully and honestly presents the paradoxes, joys and challenges of everyday life in Nigeria. It acts as means for himself and others to step back from the daily “hustle,” make sense of what is, and imagine what could be. In the end, what is produced are pieces with both aesthetic value and the ability to communicate such realities to both local and international audiences. Second, Lucho dreams of also using his talent to increase the creative and communicative capacities of others, particularly children in Jos who cannot access proper education, either because of displacement or poverty. Through volunteer work with local NGOs and schools, he has begun gaining experience in this area creating programs for internally displaced and local children learn how to use art to express and value themselves. Truly, Lucho lives as an artist, a development worker, and a peacebuilder.
