
Studio, London — 2024
About the artist
Painting as a way of remembering.
Echovara Art is the professional practice of Gideon Abowha, a Nigerian-born visual artist currently based in the United Kingdom. Working primarily in painting, Gideon creates contemplative works that explore the quiet tensions of migration, memory, and hybrid identity.
The paintings investigate the psychological and emotional landscape of living between two worlds — the pull of roots and the reality of relocation, the persistence of memory and the process of becoming. Through considered use of light, layered surfaces, colour, and form, the work captures the nuanced experience of cultural translation and the search for belonging in a new environment.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Gideon's practice is informed by personal experiences of displacement and adaptation. The resulting paintings serve as visual meditations on presence, absence, and the invisible architecture that shapes diasporic lives.
Gideon has received recognition in Nigerian national press, including features in Tribune Online, Independent Newspaper Nigeria, and PM News Nigeria. Select works are represented in a Nigerian gallery collection. The artist has exhibited in the United Kingdom on two occasions and continues to develop an international practice, supported by recommenders in both Nigeria and the UK.
Artist statement
I am interested in what survives a long journey. The paintings begin as acts of attention — to a room I left, a face I loved, the particular weather of a country that is and is not mine. I work slowly so that the surface has time to disagree with me; the canvas is where the two halves of a life are allowed to argue, and sometimes reach a quiet.
— Echovara, 2025
Born
Southwestern Nigeria
Lives & works
London, United Kingdom
Medium
Painting
