In the Creeks

In the Creeks
Oil on canvas
34 × 55 in. (86.5 × 139.5 cm)

This work captures the quiet majesty of Nigeria’s Niger Delta creeks, where still waters rest between dense green banks, offering a deliberate counterpoint to the dry hills of Northern Nigeria. The surface is calm and reflective, mirroring its surroundings with a restrained luminosity that emphasizes balance, silence, and natural order. The composition draws the viewer inward, toward a narrow opening where land and water meet, inviting contemplation rather than spectacle.

Beneath this serenity lies an undercurrent of tension. The creeks are spaces of profound beauty and latent uncertainty, where peace and disruption exist side by side. Rather than depicting conflict overtly, the painting allows absence to carry meaning, suggesting what might endure if violence and environmental degradation were to recede.

The work is shaped by the artist’s lived contrast between north and south. This dialogue heightens its emotional register, placing abundance against scarcity, water against dust, and stillness against endurance. Through this juxtaposition, In the Creeks becomes both a reflection on regional difference and a meditation on national unity.

Ultimately, the painting offers a vision of hope: an imagined Niger Delta restored to clarity and calm, and, by extension, a Nigeria in which diverse landscapes and histories coexist in balance, sustained by care rather than conflict.