Chinaza Agbor is a 19 year old fine artist from Dallas, Texas. She often paints colorful portraits with a grotesque twist, some of which you can see below. Taking inspiration from past relationships, her art looks to tell stories of the sexuality of women. She cites finishing a work of art as one of the most rewarding feelings in her life. Check out Chinaza’s work below and be sure to read our interview with her that follows.
Describe your style of work.
I would say my art style is a mix between surrealism and expressionism. What I draw changes every day and I’m not sure if my paintings have a strong correlation with each other like other artists that I love. I know I’ll eventually get there but for now, I just paint/draw whatever comes to mind and whatever is in my mind stays in the surrealistic/expressionist bounds. My drawings/paintings tend to tell stories that are from the point of view of women. I tell stories about women’s sexuality and also their relationships. My art is also an exaggerated story about my relationships with men and also the relationships women close to me had with men. For now, my work is very heteronormative but I plan to incorporate the stories of other women of other sexualities into my artwork.
Something I’d like to add is that I feel it is very debilitating for artists finding their “style” and it’s not really something you can force, I’m still in the process of finding my style and perfecting it, it’s a constant evolution. My advice to other artists would be just to doodle. Doodle all the time and the concepts that you doodle that you enjoy the most, incorporate it into a piece and just keep going from there. Study your favorite artists and figure out what you enjoy the most from these artists and incorporate it into a piece (that doesn’t mean copy a piece verbatim).
How do you start a new piece / come up with new ideas?
My ideas are based on the movies I watch. I’m very into foreign horror movies and foreign movies in general. When I’m listening to music the lyrics spark ideas. Sometimes, I’ll just be scrolling through instagram (I follow a lot of cool people on instagram) and an idea will just come to me. When I actually start a piece though, the idea that I had in my head usually turns out completely different on canvas/paper. I’m a big fan of order and disorder. What that means is that I like to put some form of order in my art whether that be geometric hair or repetition. Then I like to add a form of disorder which is where I add “disaster” in work (paint splashes, random doodles, stray hairs, etc…).
I mostly use copics nowadays and the way I blend the markers looks like paint or watercolor I suppose. I’m a big fan of black India ink and I tend to find a way to incorporate it into every single one of my artworks and also white ink/gel, I love the contrast both mediums create with each other. Also, I tend to incorporate pinks and purples into my works all the time. I usually don’t feel right until I use pink and purples in my work. Pinks and purples just embody stereotypical feminity and so often I see people straying away from pink because it is seen as such a “feminine” color. They are my favorite colors.
What is it that inspires your work?
Really good/weird movies inspire my work. Music influences my work heavily also.
What does art mean to you?
Art is my entire life, all forms of art influence the way that I think and what I create. Art is my outlet and I feel like my life would be very dull and meaningless without it. I can’t really describe the feeling of creating something your very proud of, it’s just very rewarding.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I actually don’t know where I see myself in 5 years at the moment. Last year, I saw myself in medical school. This year I’m not sure but I’m certain I’ll be very successful.
