The Artist
About the artist
The single painter held by Ovico. A practice of more than thirty years, recorded canvas by canvas as one continuous body of work.
This is my passion, my job, my hobby, my life, my everything.
Chike Onuorah, in the studio, Lagos
Chike Onuorah works in oil and acrylic from a studio in Lagos. A Fine Arts graduate of the University of Benin, he has painted full time for more than three decades. His motivation, in his own words, is the instinctive desire to explore and conquer yet another creative possibility.
The paintings accumulate as a single argument carried across years: the figure under pressure, colour as record, the surface kept honest.
Onuorah is recognized as the originator of three distinct movements that he has developed throughout his career: Splashillino, Plastillino, and the Grass Series. Each is a separate language of colour, texture, and form.
His work has been exhibited across Nigeria, Senegal, the United Kingdom, Germany, Romania, Jamaica, and the United States. The painting Land of Treasures has hung in the Presidential Lounge of the International Conference Centre in Djibouti since 2021.
In March 2025, in Lagos, he received the Eminent Fellow, Patron, and Lifetime Achievement Award, together with a Doctorate Honoris Causa, from the Institute of Leadership Manpower and Management Development.
For every painting, Onuorah writes an original poem. When an original is acquired, that poem travels home with it, so the work and its words are never parted.
It is a signature of the practice and of the gallery, and a reminder that each canvas began as something felt before it was something seen.
See the Work Itself
The collected paintings of Chike Onuorah, documented and available now.
Enter the Collection