BOB-NOSA

Bob-Nosa is an artist based in Lagos, Nigeria and his paintings focus on poor leadership in Africa, in order to give a voice to the unheard. As a political critique, his works exposes problems plaguing Nigerian society caused by the ruling class- from poor leadership and government corruption to violence, theft, election rigging and human trafficking. His art is a tool to raise pertinent issues in the public discourse, in order to begin the cycle that will incite social change. These figures are formed as a kind of caricature, which come across looking animalistic and barbaric.

 

Bob-Nosa Uwagboe was born in 1974 in the ancient city of Benin kingdom (Edo State), rich in cultural and artistic heritage. He received his professional education at the famous colourist school, Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State where he graduated in the year 2004 with a Higher National Diploma (H.N.D) in painting.

Bob-Nosa as he is fondly called, retired immediately to full-time studio practice after his one year mandatory service to the nation as a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) at Abuja. After a brief stay in Abuja, he relocated to Lagos to set up The Protest Art Studio to explore his creative energy into an experimental path that has resulted to thought provoking themes and often times spark of anger, pain, passion and vision that are not often defined by the subject matters and defy the border usually set by artistic canons. He evokes emotion with his art in which he employs diverse materials seemingly unconnected at first, he often succeed in challenging the audience to deeper engagement with his work from which there are varied interpretation and reflection mostly concerned with issues of falsehood, deception, bad leadership and reaching to the unreached.

 

The poor leadership in Africa and high level of inhumanity practices among men that has become the norm is his primary interest as he interprets these issues either offensively or defensively with his art. His art is a puzzle, magical and consuming to viewers. Bob-Nosa creative process is a moment of calmness, anger, pain, passion, therapeutic and evoking emotion in which he employs diverse materials such as fabrics, his hair, sand, papers, sack, rope, acrylic, spray paint, crayon, charcoal, oil paint on canvas or board and this process is a moment of total surrender to his will power and opening up his soul as a channel where good ideas pass through and the result is of human significance with global validity. Bob-Nosa has always acclaimed these words- ‘I don’t pre-destine my art process, these might circumscribe my creative effort and jeopardize creativity.’

 

 

His subject matters are the provocative characters in the Nigerian social sphere, as well as the urban landscape especially Lagos- a city of over twenty million people. The average citizen is caught amidst unprecedented change with rapid development, economic gaps and a lack of basic infrastructure, and carries on through the daily hustle and chaos commonly found in Lagos. 

With originality and strength of his voice Bob-Nosa Uwagboe shocked the art public in 2009 with his show “Recent works by Bob-Nosa” held at the Pan African University in Lagos. Bob-Nosa’s arts can be found in many respectable public and private collections both in Nigeria and aboard and have shown in different important exhibitions worldwide. He is married to Bawo-Okoro Uwagboe and blessed with a son (Osarenkhoe). He currently lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.