In Uche Uzorka’s most recent works on paper, which include ink and charcoal drawings, sombre tones of black, grey, and red dominate the colour spectrum, boldly protruding from the white and barren remainder of the blank picture plane. At first glance, these works are best described as abstract drawings, with amorphous shapes and splashes of colour flowing together in an ambiguous and seemingly haphazard rhythm. Yet, at closer inspection, meticulous attention has been made to create a myriad of overlapping patterns, bodies, and signs, tightly congested together to form a dense combination of complex design. If at one sense Uzorka’s drawings seem to come across as arbitrarily doodled, there is also a strict and rigorous attention to detail that creates its structure and congeals its fluid power. In short, what makes Uche Uzorka’s drawings unique is their place between the figurative and the abstract. Rather than exist as binary oppositions, Uzorka frames the abstract in the figurative, and vice versa. Using strategies that Uzorka refers to as “contrast and dominance”, it is an exercise in how lines become form, ultimately stopping at the decisive moment that they do.

Line.Sign.Symbol 

Uche Uzorka 



African Artists' Foundation (AAF) 

54 Raymond Njoku Street, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria 



31 January- 23 February 2013

Opening Reception: 31 January, 7 PM  

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