I’m successfully mixing medicine with art –Ugwuoke
22.04.2015.
By isiguzo Destiny



He can be described with what the black US surgeon, Ben Carson called ‘gifted hands’. Ejike Ugwoke is a trained medical doctor; who graduated from medical school and currently practices as a doctor. Beyond using his hands for healing, he employs it in painting various concepts including what he called ‘the surreal’, a kind of

He can be described with what the black US surgeon, Ben Carson called ‘gifted hands’. Ejike Ugwoke is a trained medical doctor; who graduated from medical school and currently practices as a doctor. Beyond using his hands for healing, he employs it in painting various concepts including what he called ‘the surreal’, a kind of painting that depicts the fantastic and unreal representation of reality in imagination. Describing himself, the doctor-painter said, “I’ve heard people in my world say that guy that smiles always, he is down to earth, he is usually quiet and calculated, he’s weird, he’s talented, but I am Ugwoke Ejike, a freelance artist, a medical doctor, and a Nigerian from Enugu state. I am passionate about art and creativity in every aspect including music, photography, graphics, city development and tourism, and humanitarian service including medical care”.

One may begin to wonder how and when this artist discovered his talent in the arts or whether it was a talent he discovered very late. Moreso whether it was an inborn talent or acquired skill. Ejike told National Mirror that, “I discovered myself as a painter quite early, as early as a pupil in primary school. Comments and appreciation from friends made me discovered I have something unique. That little motivation encouraged me to paint more cartoons, characters in WWF, movie characters. Subsequently, in secondary school, I discovered a new dimension to my skill...I can make money with it. In university, as a medical student, I was making money from event posters, logo designs, hand-made cards, gift boxes, portraits, and other art works”.

He revealed that he is a born artist, one that has artistic sagacity running in the family gene. “I would say it’s both natural and acquired. Natural, because my late dad, popularly known as J.J.C Ugwoke, was an artist, and all of us in my family paint, except one person. If I should explain it in medical terms, I would say it has genetic and environmental factors. Environmental in the sense that we may have subconsciously picked some skills while watching my dad do art works. He never, for once, taught us painting, and none of us got any formal art education in school. We just discovered something; that we get better as we draw, paint or do other forms of art works. The more I paint the more I improve my skills. So I kept pushing, making mistakes but gradually improving my skill, even during my tedious days in medical college. However, as I admire works of professional artists, I say to myself, Ejike you need to push further, and I kept evolving into something better”.

How can an artist combine two tasking unrelated professions? This question has bothered anyone that came across this talented painter but Ejike always solves this puzzle. “The truth is that I keep discovering myself and improving. I say discovery because during my days in medical college, when sometimes, I leave art work for long, I discovered that I find it difficult to paint when I decide to. It still happens to me as I practice as a doctor. Same way I find it difficult to get back to providing medical care after long period of art work. It’s as if different parts of brain control science and art. The two fields are demanding, so even in my college days it limited my school activities. Not like I was passive in school, nope, I avoided activities that were also demanding or not related to my plans for future. I avoided school politics, wild parties, and so on. However, I have to a large extent, improved my ability to combine the two fields. I might be painting, a call comes in from hospital, I clean up myself and head to the hospital to suture a wound, and then switch back to my painting, afterwards. Due to time factor as a practising doctor, I limited myself mostly to paintings; I didn’t pursue graphics and photography again. This will help me improve more on painting and further my post graduate studies in medicine. I also read books on both art and medicine”.

With such commitments and passions for two things, Ejike was asked which of them he finds more interesting and he said he feels incomplete without both. “Let me give you a scenario, a new friend picks my phone, goes to my gallery and starts watching art paintings, then the usually question comes. Why then did you study medicine? I find both interesting and I feel incomplete without both. What keep me going in medicine is the amazing things that happen daily, the smile of relief you find on a patients’ face after curing their illness while Art is part of me and I also discovered it before Medicine. I would have gone fully into Art course but I was doing well in science, in secondary school. Secondly, I only had an Art teacher in JSS1. I attended a government /catholic secondary school, and we lacked art teachers in the school then, so I ended up in science class. When it came to choosing a course in University, I decided I want diversity, so I went for Medicine. Nigeria government really needs to revamp our primary and secondary schools, that’s where foundation of future interests are laid, a lot of young talents are either lost or poorly tapped because of the poor educational system in this country. There’re young children, out there, good in music, dance, football, engineering/ technology, oration, leadership, but these qualities are not enhanced, and most time they are lost or under used”.

When asked what his major challenge is in painting and what he intends to do with painting, he said his challenge is learning some technicalities in painting and that “most artists, who really love what they do, will tell you how much they crave for appreciation of their works, even more than the money they generates. So I want to see my works appreciated nationally and internationally. Secondly, I usually ask this question; what is the place of Art in Medicine? I have only been able to find few answers. Someone who has artistic skill is refined in the hand, so they usually make good surgeons. I am, currently, researching on how art can be seamlessly fused with medicine in a way that will be interesting, healing and at the same time generate fund. Art informed my decision to pursue Radiology in Medical post graduate studies, it’s an area of medicine that deals with images, and while I continue in informal education in Art, I hope to develop a concept that will fuse the two”.

Unlike so many other artists, Ejike does not follow or tries to emulate other painters whom he considers their works as great. He revealed that his role model is his dad and then no other person. “Except for my late dad, I don’t have a role model. I will, in future. Though I observe closely the works of Bruce Onobrakpeya, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso. Picasso’s works don’t impress me at all, may be because I am not a fan of cubism. I’m only interested in aspects of his life and work that made him so widely celebrated”.

jascon1:
We're happy for u. But throw a party n invite us for Ur success

Nigeria government really needs to revamp our primary and secondary schools, that’s where foundation of future interests are laid, a lot of young talents are either lost or poorly tapped because of the poor educational system in this country. There’re young children, out there, good in music, dance, football, engineering/ technology, oration, leadership, but these qualities are not enhanced, and most time they are lost or under used”.

ACM10:
Cc: lalasticlala, obinoscopy, seun. . .let us celebrate one of our own on homepage

rawpadgin:
OK
have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.