The Nigerian born artist Mabel Onyekachi Chukwu, is an academic and a visual artist of over 16 years of experience in visual art practice and visual art education. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine and Applied Art from the University of Nigeria Nsukka and Masters in Fine Art (Painting) from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
Presently, Mabel is a painting lecturer at the Department of Fine and Applied Art, FCT College of Education Zuba Abuja.
She has conducted art researches and authored paper publications in journals and academic conferences. Her artistic explorations with unconventional materials ( treated guinea corn seeds, copper wire sand etc. as mediums of art expression informed the subject of research in a PHD thesis titled; An Analysis Of Unconventional Materials Used For Art Expression By Nine ( 9) Selected Nigerian Artists.
Her works have featured in art textbooks and some national newspapers in Nigeria.
Mabel is a versatile painter who strives for uniqueness as reflected in her techniques, mediums and materials.
In her art expressions, Mabel goes beyond the boundaries of art by using unconventional and sustainable materials adopted from her environment. She explores the artistic possibilities derivable from wastes like sugarcane peels, eggshells, sand, broken kitchen plates as well as found objects like copper wire, wood, beads, sewing accessories etc.
Mabel also explores with acrylic fluidity and egg yolk. Driven by the spirit of diversification, she tries to present the dialogue of text and image to communicate more deeply her ideas.
She is an artist that combines visual and literal art into a single creative process. In her bid to communicate more deeply she tries to translate the evoked thoughts by the visual imageries in her paintings into text (poems).
Having participated in series of exhibitions (solo and group), her paintings are in private and public collections within and outside Nigeria. Her artworks are in public places in Nigeria like the National Gallery of Art Nigeria and the National Commission for Colleges of Education.
Based on Mabel’s outstanding contributions in the field of visual art, she was selected as one of the jurors in the 4th National Visual Art Competition organised by the National Gallery of Art Nigeria in 2012. A contestant and an award winner in national competitions like Poverty Photo Competition Contest, organised by the World Bank in 1999 and Winsor and Newton Art Competition in 2000, MabeI in her artistic philosophy states: ‘Through art I feel the world and through art, the world feels me”.
She is married with two daughters.
