In the next five years I want to move... - Stanley Dudu

Whether traditional or contemporary, realistic or abstract, an artist's choice is guided by expressive purpose. Stanley Dudu’s numerous drawings attest to this. 

His works revolve around women and children, which are done by memory and imagination.  Dudu interprets every day activities of women and children. The resulting images thus reflect the artist’s feelings about the subjects, which are worth discussing. 

Dudu depicts a lot of children participating in all sorts of play, such as playing “mummy and daddy.” These body of works he says were inspired by his childhood experiences. “Basically, my works reflect the society, particularly women and children. I tend to favour them more. The connection between me and them is very strong. I find market women very interesting and very hard to walk pass them. I want to look at them, the arrangement of their baskets, the gesticulations, the transactions; all these things are what inspire me about the market women. I kind of drawn to that,” he says.

His works are lavishly composed and they offer bigger than life experience that paradoxically lead viewer away from the real world and its surface appearances into the inside spaces of the mind. 

He achieves this inward view by balancing a realistic drawing technique with addition of symbolism and allegorical elements. His true ambition is to remind us of where we are coming from, where we are and where we are going.

His works were mainly monochrome before; an identity he created for himself. “I realised I needed an identity and fortunately it was at the period people were tired of seeing coloured works everywhere. By the time I was showcasing more of these, it was welcoming, I was receiving accolades,” he explains.  

In 2014 during his second solo exhibition titled Next Episode Dudu introduced colour to his works. 

His major influence he says: “Is my brother, Emmanuel Dudu. I grew up seeing him doing drawing, attempted the ink, do creative things. It wasn’t just him alone; I had another brother though he fell by the roadside. I saw the two of them work. With his (Emmanuel Dudu’s) own little achievements, I was able to pick up from there.  I must confess he has been a very big influence in my life,” he says and described his brother as “my mentor”

His work has revolved. He is currently working with pastel. “In the next five years I want to move beyond this, I want to experiment things. I want to do art that the society can associate with; I mean art that can reach out to the whole society, even beyond. I am equally nursing the notion of doing art internationally such as  residency programmes, even participate in the auction they do abroad.”

He is an Auchi Polytechnic graduate with Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in General Art in 2003 and Higher National Diploma (HND) in Painting in 2006. He is a full time studio artist.

 By Udemma Chukwuma