Artist Spotlight: DOU

In this edition of our Artist Spotlight series, we sat down with Denzel Omoefe Uwumarogie (DOU), a Nigerian-Italian visual artist based in Manchester, UK. Born and raised in the working-class boroughs of Rome by Nigerian immigrants, his practice is deeply rooted in the tension between cultures, spaces, and materials. His work explores themes of belonging, displacement, and the intersection of contemporary urban life with personal history.

We caught up with DOU about his journey as an artist so far, addiction to painting, his fascination with art history and more… 

How did your upbringing influence your approach to art?

Art history is a very important aspect of my practice. I think a lot about why I do what I do and who’s done it before me and Rome’s a really interesting environment for that. My mum is Catholic so we'd be going to church and see Frescoes, and we’d go to Florence and you get to see Raffaellos and stuff like that. Then as soon as you step outside in Rome, you see graffiti and urban life. I think this mix of classical and urban art reflects in my own art. It's not too evident, but it is more so when you understand my personal history.

This mix is something that I’m trying to push out more and more, not just through my iconography, but also through textures and layers as I think they're symbolic of the history of where I come from. 

You use pretty unconventional materials in your work - what attracts you to using certain materials for certain pieces?

I use whatever I find in my studio. I try not to waste anything like paint, cotton, fabric, clay. Anything that I can find, I just try to put on my canvas. I had a flatmate who had a lot of spare clay so I just started priming my canvases with clay just because it was accessible to me and I couldn’t afford priming gesso. So that opened me up to using unconventional materials. 

And then a friend of mine was like, why don't you just make your own tools? So I started researching artists that make their own tools like Jack Whitten and Gerhard Richter and other artists that make their own tools to make their life easier. I started experimenting not just with painting itself but the ways of application with the tools. 

In terms of what draws me to the materials I use, I think accessibility but also the materials and surfaces that I see just walking around Manchester. Manchester is a city with a post-industrial history so many of the surfaces erode with time, between rain, nature, people doing graffiti on them, people erasing the graffiti. This idea of layering is very interesting to me so I try to bring these textures into my studio. 

Do you have a favoruite piece you’ve made for any reason? 

I like whenever I'm working on something currently, so at the moment I could say that's my favorite piece [gesturing to a piece in the room]. I'm just working on this study right now on, on paper. I’ve started looking at images of working class cities that remind me of working class Rome, like this scooter. I wake up in the morning and just walk around and see the pastry chef having their cigarette break or the butcher coming in with the van load and I live close to a big Asian community so I see a lot, it’s very interesting. I just love looking at workers for some reason, it's very interesting to me. 

Were you always drawn to art - how did your journey as an artist start? 

I remember me and my dad spent time after school redrawing the picture on the cover of my maths book, instead of doing maths. I used to watch a lot of cartoons, a lot of anime, and as I said, I was surrounded by art, so it was just something that was part of my life. I went to church - there was art in church. I go outside - there's graffiti. 

We did some pottery classes in elementary school in Italy and I started gaining a little bit more interest in art though I’d mainly say it started from fashion. Actually, here’s a confession: I used to skip school with my friends, we'd get fabric and just put pieces together and create clothes and stuff. And from there, I transitioned into photography. I would photograph my friend's pieces, or creative direct shoots. When I came to England, during COVID, I had a lot of time that I just spent reading, listening to podcasts and videos about art and the artists way of thinking. Artists like Arta Jade, carry my weems, Lorna Simms - I could go on and on. I'm just very passionate about art history. Art was a space I never saw myself in at first but from seeing these different perspectives, it made me understand that maybe there was a way for me. I pursued fine art photography and I was in my fine art photography bag. 

I went to college for a year in England to study media but that didn’t work out for me. I became homeless as well, so I was just moving from city to city. I ended up moving to Manchester because a friend was like, yo, you should move to Manchester and just give it a go. I came in with the idea to do photos but it was a bit of an effort trying to find models, renting spaces, paying for everyone’s transport, paying for everyone's food, coming up with ideas - it’s a lot. There's just so many things. And I was like, I'm just gonna grab a spray paint can and start spray painting on canvas since I used to do some tagging back in Italy. I thought, let me just start tagging on canvases because I don't know how the graffiti scene works in Manchester, like I don't know if it might be dangerous or not. So that was me painting for the first time, spray painting on canvas. My friend dared me to get a bigger canvas and it went on and on and painting became an addiction. 

I wouldn’t say that painting is my favourite thing to do. You know, if I could find another way to express myself, I would happily do that. I don't I really don't enjoy painting, but when I don’t do it for two or three days, I’m just so off balance and I feel sick. I could do so many other things, but this seems to be the one that I got stuck with. Which is very frustrating sometimes because you go through creative blocks, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes you doubt yourself like, have I lost the sauce? 

When you’re painting you’re not just painting too - you're just battling with yourself constantly and that's the worst part. With a lot of other things you can detach yourself from it, but I find it really hard to detach from my artwork, espcially figurative painting. Figurative painting is all about, do I see myself in this painting? I think in some sort of way, being a figurative painter is a little bit of an egotistical and maniacal thing. Why does everything always have to come back to me and to my experience? That’s why I try to balance my practice with abstract works that are more than just textures, but in some way I still see myself in the textures even. I see myself in the layers of time passing and surfaces being eroded. 

In an ideal world, how would you express yourself otherwise creatively?

I would do a mix of music, painting, video montage and architecture. Building and curating space would be a dream for me. I'm working on this installation coming up in June, where I’m going to be working on the space and making work outside of painting.

But, yeah, in an ideal world where I'm not addicted to painting, I would do all these things and I wouldn't limit myself just to painting but it’s just so addictive. You appreciate your own company and your own thoughts, it’s nice. But don’t get me wrong, I love when people come over to my studio and talk to me whilst I paint because it can be good to be distracted. This is why I say I hate painting, it’s not the painting itself but the parts where you’re so insecure about that one line, whereas if you did do that line, it probably wouldn’t change anything. It’s that self doubt and insecurity that comes with dealing with yourself a lot. 

As I said, having someone in the studio talking to me while I paint helps me mindlessly paint which is ideal - painting without thinking, that flow from my brain to my hand to the canvas, without having to filter thoughts, without having to overcomplicate things which is when I feel I’m at my best. 

What changes would you like to see in the future of the art industry?

Being less polished. Being more accessible. When I say accessible, I just mean that there should be a niche for everything. I don’t like trends - I don’t believe in trends. I think trends are so stupid because art is not to be played with, art is not a game. Art is a serious matter and painting is a serious matter. Treating art like it’s just some material, I don’t know, I think it’s deeper than that. So I feel like it should be treated with the respect it deserves and everybody should have access not just to the art but to the knowledge around the art. 

I feel like a lot of times, art is just made very complicated. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate art that is complicated and needs a little bit of time to unpack. But I also think that a lot of times, these complications and the jargon surrounding art is unnecessary. I want to make art that the people around me can understand and make it accessible to them - what’s the point of making art if you’re just going to lock it in a tower where nobody can get in? 

Also, more opportunities for young artists man. I don’t wanna be fifty years old by the time I have something going on. It’s so sad because I either go the pop culture pathway to be recognised or I just keep producing work and wait until I’m 50. 

If you enjoyed this conversation with DOU, make sure to check out our other Artist Spotlight interviews over on https://www.brushwrk.co.uk/blog and whilst you’re there, why not have a look through all of the fantastic art we have for sale from emerging artists? Pop into the website to see what catches your eye…