My name is Victor Ekpuk I’m a visual artist i live in Washington DC. I’ve always wanted to be an artist i believe i could draw very well make very good representations of things around me before i went to school to learn to read right my mother encouraged me to enter for the fine arts competition when i was in second grade and i won for my school and for the subdivision that way and so when i went to apply for college it’s the only thing i wanted to study so that’s it’s in my trajectory you know i’ve always done things related to arts whether i was painting or what i was doing working in advertising industry or whether i was doing illustrations for newspaper.

This building here is actually an old school building in D.C., it’s got large windows so lots of sunshine is coming in and it’s quiet and i do like to listen to music i have a very eclectic taste to me and there was a time when i actually have a painting named after a track from Winton Marsalis Big Fat Hen it happened when i was in a residency doing an artist residency in Lagos, i have put up a first wall so i can put up my artwork while i’m painting so i was messing with the wall you know clean my brush and things like that so one day i came in and i was playing Winton Marsalis in the background as i was doing that i started feeling that somehow i was becoming affected by how he written music as it was going and um and then i caught myself i realized that actually i was responding to the music on this piece so i decided to make it a piece and finish it and call it you know a Big Fat Hen.

Just take your time, hone your skills and also begin look at what you do as a profession and as a business

you know when you begin to think of it that way i guess you can see the worth of your work and begin to realize that as much as you go into the studio depends i also realize that you’re creating what’s on a good product and that is valuable then you’re much beginning to at least

have more respect for what you do and and give it more value you know