“I think it's also difficult to see the unusual suspects. And of course, in my case, I say unusual, because you know, I am a gallerist to most people and I am a curator to most people.”
Ugoma starts with a nod to the importance of Pavillon54’s focus on collectors.
“But there's also a side of me that I don't share, which the artists will know more about because the collection goes through due to the interaction with them”.
Ugoma Ebilah is one of the unusual suspects in the ever-booming art scene in Lagos, Nigeria. A corporate finance professional turned creative entrepreneur, Ugoma is known for her community-building efforts and dynamic taste-making. She is the founding director and chief curator at Bloom Art, a portfolio gallery and private art salon set in the heart of Victoria Island. She has overseen the repatriation of significant pieces of Nigerian modernist art and has closed private secondary market transactions, placing valuable art in esteemed collections. Her expertise in the art market and ability to bridge the gap between art and finance have earned her recognition and made her a sought-after consultant.
As is the habit of every exceptional tastemaker, Ugoma has been very intentional and curious in the curation of her collection. Some of the works in the collection, which is housed in Ugoma’s home, are from different generations. Ablade Glover, Muraina Oyelami, Lemi Ghariokwu, Victor Ehikhamenor, Angela Isiuwe, Rom Isichei, Olu Ajayi, Tam Fiofori, Marcia Kure, Uchay Joel Chima, Gbenga Offo and Tega Akpokona, are some of the modern and contemporary artists whose lovely pieces adorn the rooms of Ugoma.
In this interview, she shares her collection story as a gallerist and a curator. Her love and passion for art is descriptively detailed as she explores the spiritual as well as the aesthetic nature of art. She also makes an argument for artists as she staunchly believes collectors as tastemakers must put their money where their mouth is as they not only invest in African art but in the journey of the artists too.
In this focus series, collectors are invited to open their art collections to Pavillon 54 readers.
What was your earliest experience with art?
Design objects were my first interaction with beauty. When we were growing up, we didn’t have art in the house, but we had design objects. My father is an engineer, and he is very conscious of his aesthetics and space. We had one of those living rooms we weren’t allowed in as kids in the house. Whenever I entered the living room, I observed the things in it a bit stronger: the beautiful plush, velvety furniture, this bar that he had designed himself, and then, of course, the piece de résistance (an Arco lamp) that only came into my memory later on.
My older sister, with whom I was living in London in the early 2000s, was very affected by beauty. She, an industrial designer, former architecture student, and designer of fashion herself, had beauty in her home and encouraged me to look out for things that appeal to the sensibilities of fashion, design, and art. She encouraged me to go to galleries while I was doing my A levels when I was bunking with her as her ward in London.
London also opened my eyes to art, as there was so much to see, like the museums. Being able to pop into galleries and art centres and just see and feel beauty. I'd say those are the beginnings of what would later become a lifelong obsession.
Paintings by Professor Ablade Glover and Tolu Aliki respectively
What inspired you to start your collection and how did you decide to start collecting?
I guess the governing idea is about being a part of the system that upholds artists. I have been an exhibitor primarily but in the journey to finding out that you sell and present works for exhibitions, you inevitably have to interact with the artists. In my job, sometimes you have a compelling connection with a particular artist, and then you identify within that connection; your possible place in the grand scheme of things. Which is to be a contributor to upholding the art, artist, or their journey. It comes mostly from feeling responsible and feeling a very strong need to be part of the things that uphold artists. So it's like, what part can I play here?
To some extent, as a curator and the gallerist, it is to tell the story. In other cases, it is to fund by buying. Once you've already ticked the boxes of connection and love, if you have the means you must complete that by putting your money where your mouth is, and acquiring and being the custodian of those pieces. You're collecting the art and the artist. That's how I've collected over the years. I have collected the artist first in most cases.
In fact, in most cases, the artist has been first.
How would you describe your collection today, compared to when you first started collecting?
It's very versatile. In an interview some years ago, I was asked, “Do you collect wide or do you collect deep?” Collecting deep implies that you go into certain artists and go all the way with them. Or you collect wide, which is a much more varied, multifaceted, and multi-artist-based approach, and I'll say I collect wide. My typical journey to collecting an art piece would start with my inquiries and research into the artists and the body of work that I want to select from. While I am in that space, I’m getting to know each piece through the artists’ eyes, forming my opinion about the works. When it gets to the point where I’m exhibiting, I look at it as a viewer, making my inferences and what I like.
Collectors have very independent opinions. I may say I think a piece of work is my favourite, but it doesn’t have to be your favourite. It doesn't make it any less valid, and it doesn't change the fact that my favourite has been rejected. It's just what it is. There's so much space in art, and that's a beautiful thing. There's so much room for individual taste and desire, and everybody can be happy.
“Kudi in the garden series” by Soji Adesina
What was the first piece of art you bought and what drew you to it?
Gerald Chukwuma was my first piece ever. I had an aesthetic reaction to what I was seeing. And then we had a conversation. The conversations, even now, just trump the visual reaction. I love how what I am seeing makes me feel but the best part is having this wonderful experience conversing with the artist.
Another example is Tega Akpokona. I enjoy the conversations. The time between me owning an Oliver Okolo and showing him was about a three- to four-year gap. The connection there was the artist. Tega is the same. The visual is as important as the fundamentally moving conversation. This way, you learn about the artists, their influences, philosophies, history, life, and emotions. You learn about what makes them tick, and how they see themselves in the grand scheme of things. I think those things are important. Yes, some artists can’t verbalise but if you're intuitive, even if an artist is not the most eloquent, you can still feel their energy, and I do.
My ability to feel the energy is heightened because of the job I do. But you know, that's not a bad thing that you can sense artists more highly than others, and therefore you can spot what works for you and what doesn’t. What do you want to support or enhance?
Are there any pieces in your collection that people are often drawn to or ask questions about?
People always ask me about Olu Ajayi. There's one particular painting of his in my kitchen. It's probably one of my favourite pieces. At first glance, it's not his signature look, but the more you study the strokes of that painting, if you are a connoisseur, you will see the strength in the delivery. If you are even more observant, you will see the connection between many of the previous strokes of Olu Ajayi and that one. It is rendered in a very different colour. It's very bright and very blue-pastel, but it's unusual and striking. It's an abstract piece, so it is therefore confusing, but it's also inviting because you can then interpret it in so many different ways.
“Eat Alone, Die Alone” by Eva Obodo and “Halo series” sculpture by Richardson Ovbiebo
People love and have attempted to steal my Babajide Olatunji (laughs). The piece is of a girl with the most piercing eyes from his tribal mark series. It is a testament to his skill in depicting the most nuanced features of the human form in charcoal. He is really gifted.
Angela Isiuwe is an artist who gets a lot of attention from me. First of all, she's one of my favourites. I'm very proud of the work that I've done, not just at Bloom with her, but also of the fact that I have been fortunate to collect quite a bit of her work. I feel that she's a genius. A renegade who goes in the opposite direction for me makes me feel like I'm that person. Angela's work reminds me of my own agency to go the other way.
She comes from a school that has birthed some of our most important colourists, but she has maintained a monochromatic tone to her work. She achieves a lot of her work in less than three strokes. The ability to control and not add on; to keep it simple but powerful. Say less, not more; do less, not more; keep it simple. Her work always attracts attention. It's odd because it's so on its own, but even in a flurry of deep texture, deep colour, and multi-use multimedia, an Angela canvas or paperwork in black and white, or white and black, always has people asking me, ‘Who's that?’ ‘Who's that?’
I have two Gerald Chukwumas in my collection. My favourite is gloriously hanging in the beautiful offices of CSC today in a partnership we started where I'm hanging some art for them with them. As they begin their collection, we're testing out what they like and what can be communicative for them and their brand. That piece is one of my favourites, called The Coloured Road. It was a reject but I love rejects. I can turn anything into gold. That piece is the most golden thing I've ever seen, and I think it's one of Gerald's best pieces of all time. Whether he agrees with me or not.
Bronze and wood sculptures by Victor Ehikhamenor and Lamidi Fakeye respectively
Who are the favourite artists in your collection?
Uche Chima is one of my favourite artists because he is one of the best human beings. I consider Richardson Ovbiebo, despite his age, to be the noblest. Muraina Oyelami is the noblest of the noblest. You work with an artist, and you choose to be close to them. In the closeness, you discover them, and it is in the closeness that you can honour them with your retelling of their stories. You retell as a curator. You have your own opinion, but you are retelling their stories as you have heard them.
On that journey, you discover true nobility. I am affected by these artists. Ultimately, when I think about what makes me stick with them, yes, their works, but it is really the soul of the artists for me, and I collect along those lines. If I can’t hear from the artist, I make it up in my mind. I imagine it. I piece things together from things I have read and heard, and I create a story. I never met Ben Enwonwu, but I was not privileged to have been working at a time when he was alive. I have met him in the spirit world, in the imaginary. After selling about 30 Ben Enwonwus in my career, I had the priviledge of having him pass through my hands, my life, and my consciousness, but I never had one. Then last year, I managed to save enough to buy a tiny one, and you cannot tell me anything because it is the biggest painting in the whole world because I can now participate in the history and personality that I imagined and what we all know he represents in the canon generally.
What would it have been like if I had had a chance at tea, coffee, or a glass of wine with Ben Enwonwu that would have influenced me to be his collector? I make it up because it is my prerogative as well, because we are all in the dream world. To live with art is to opt for a higher frequency, which can help deal with the current frequency you are living in. Most of us are in need of that escape; even the artists are in need of that escape to create their work. You, as a collector, are on the other side of the coin from the artist, so you too are journeying. Whether I have had real conversations or I have imagined seeing them, it is enough for me. It is enough to influence why something hangs on the wall and where.
When considering a work of art and the artist behind it for your collection, what specific qualities or elements do you look for?
In the present time, I am looking out a lot more for wonder. I am looking for art that is extremely neutral or extremely destructive. I am in a place in my life where I don’t want neutrality. I don't want anything that is not going to jar, and jarring can be done in two ways. It can send you to a place of pure stillness or a place of pure excitement and wonder, and even the opposite of high thrill and wonder is stillness. That’s the juncture I am at now. You collect accordingly. Collecting is a personal thing. What I collected when I was 30, 35, or 40 and what I will collect when I am 60 will be different, hopefully. That’s where I am now.
I have also been able to create an infrastructure that allows me to show everything, which is why I have a home that is more like a blank canvas. My former home was the opposite of a blank canvas, and the art had to fit in a bit more. Now, I am free. I have placed complete freedom in my 40s, freedom in my tastes, and the courage to justify anything I want and love. All I have to feel is love. Visually, the visuals will conform. I am looking for pure love and wonder in art now more than ever before because of where I am personally.
Works by Barrios, Babajide Olatunji, Victor Ehikhamenor, Lamidi Fakeye and KEYEZUA.
Can you highlight the notable changes you have observed in the African art scene since you have been collecting art?
It is hard to answer that question as it is such a vast world, but one thing that I have noticed is that like everything new, it starts with a bit of hype, and people are reacting a lot to the hype, almost like a herd mentality of well-doing, and we are all trying to get back to our basics. There was a portrait tone at the beginning of this current art cycle, and then it became a consciousness around some of the atrocities we have faced with military rule, collective power, and political slant, and then we went into a celebratory slant with democracy and economic growth, so much more celebratory, “flenjor”.
I think, now, we have just come out of a place where art as an investment conversation has taken us by storm. What happens with conversations like this is that they end, and we need to come back to the basics. For love, compulsion, and the financial traits of a piece or an artist's journey, they may or may not be there. Then we talked about returns and fiscal waves, but you still have to ask how I feel about the piece. I have seen those trends, like art being a political and activist expression and art being a celebratory expression, and now it is an international participation conversation because the world has also discovered ours. Because of the international expression conversation, I think that we have also, in recent times, after the investments merry-go-round entered the place of liking things in a heightened way that the West liked.
With figuration, of course, we love figurations because we have done portraits of ourselves forever, as we have perpetuated ourselves in sculptures, carvings, furniture, prints, hairstyles, and food. Everything about us is dotted around. That’s fine. The slight exaggeration comes when the rest of the world discovers us, and that is where we are now and are maybe just leaving behind. With exaggeration comes mockery. We don’t have to prove anything.
How has collecting art influenced the rest of your life and career?
It's impossible to not mention the influence of my job and the way I go about finding art and artists. It influences how I collect as I do so along the lines of how I exhibit. My policy has always been to buy last. As a gallerist, curator, and collector, you can shop as well, but you can't be the first to buy. It's almost like getting high on supply, which you don't do, as Notorious BIG taught us (laughs).
However, one thing I have found and love about the spirit and the spirituality of art is that every piece has its owner.Even in choosing last, there's no piece that I've ever bought last from an exhibition; that was not the piece I wanted from the beginning. When it comes to an exhibition, the artist’s and the curator’s views are equally valid. If a curator takes their responsibility seriously as the mouthpiece, custodian, or cover for an artist, then you have to trust them. I think it's important that multiple facets are explored and seen. Artists for decades have been written to start in one style and end in another. Picasso started his career in high figuration and pretty much ended in high abstraction. The same life and the same evolving mind. Which is more valid than the other? You really can't answer that question.
Works by Niyi Olagunju, Lucinda Mudge, Julius Agbaje and Funke Oladimeji
What do you enjoy most about being a collector?
My favourite part is that I feel like I have the best of both worlds. I get to look at beautiful things every corner I turn. I also feel like I am living with the essential charm and spirit of the artists that I love. The way I am looking at beauty, I am also collecting all the joy, energy, goodwill, and intentions of the artists who made the works. The third part, which I guess is the teacher in me, is that I love how the art I own makes other people feel.
I love that what I have makes other people believe that there are possibilities and feel the possibilities of space and aesthetics. I just love how other people react. I don’t feel like I have done anything special; I feel compelled; I have been joyful; and I consider myself lucky that what I have built has such an effect on artists and laypersons. It makes people curious. Just the way the art I have collected and my own collecting story make other people feel inspired. They, too, can buy one painting. They too can live in a space where art is frequent as opposed to having furniture alone, which is how we all are used to or grew up that way.
Why should people consider collecting local art, and how do you recommend they do it?
Charity begins at home. I say this all the time. We often delegate what value-bringing is to others. We forget that the most important bringer of value to anything starts with us. We must collect local art to make local art worth it. Before the world decides we are great, we have to agree that we are great. How do we agree that we are great? Vote with your wallet.
Nigerians must buy Nigerians to elevate Nigeria, to diffuse the reliance on the dollar so that the exchange rate can maybe revert or regulate somewhat, so that the local economy and local jobs can thrive, and people can have more hopeful outlooks and disposable income. When there is more disposable income, their brains can be opened to even hearing about art, because right now you cannot hear about art if you are just trying to buy fuel. It is a trickle-down effect, and it is so simple. It is upsetting that our government can’t simplify this code. It is only when you invest in yourself that people start to invest in you.
Once you make things look good, people will invest in them. If more collectors buy local, by the time they are having conversations at home and abroad about what they love, the love becomes contagious. The collector has to invest in that journey because that is what you endorse as a collector is what appreciates. The collector is as valuable as their collection.
By Iyanuoluwa Adenle