"Undefined boundaries 2" Painting

Victor Ubabike is a Nigerian contemporary painter born in 1982 in Auchi, Edo State, working in the style he defines as Geometric Figurative Expressionism. He grew up inspired by a late elder brother whose natural talent for drawing left a deep impression on him. He began drawing at an early age and never stopped. Art became the language he reached for first. His formal development began in 1999 to 2000 under the tutelage of Jacob Ijemeh, which gave him the discipline to match his instinct. He went on to earn a Higher National Diploma in Fine and Applied Arts from Auchi Polytechnic in 2007, building the foundation for more than two decades of practice since. His journey as a painter has been one of deliberate evolution. He began with Impressionism, drawn especially to the figure, capturing light, mood and the human presence with painterly looseness. Over time that gave way to abstraction, where form dissolved and feeling took over entirely. From there he arrived at where he stands today: Geometric Figurative Expressionism, a style that brings both worlds together. The figure returns, but now it is fractured, rebuilt in planes and angles, charged with the emotional intensity his earlier abstractions taught him. Ubabike works primarily in acrylic on canvas, with oil also forming part of his practice. His subject is the human body in space and in motion. He approaches the figure not as a portrait but as a sculptural puzzle, deliberately inhabiting the tension between pure realism and total abstraction. He fractures the body into geometric planes, then charges those planes with colour and feeling until structure and emotion become inseparable. His process is one of discovery. He goes to the canvas with questions, not answers. He wants viewers to feel a physical shift when they stand before his work, to be held in the present moment and fully present to what the painting demands of them. His work is held in private collections and has been shown through Signature Beyond Art Gallery, Lagos and Orisun Art Gallery, Abuja. He lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.