Charcoal and graphite come to life in local artist’s solo exhibition at Dugdale Arts Centre, writes Madison Yarbrough

Artworks from Hillary Emetuche's exhibition at the Dugdale — Artworks from Hillary Emetuche’s exhibition at the Dugdale

Local artist Hillary Emetuche has taken up a short residence at Dugdale Arts Centre in Enfield Town to present his collection of graphite and charcoal drawings.

Having just won a prize for having the most visitor votes at Enfield Art Circle’s exhibition at Capel Manor College, Hillary sat down with me to talk about his work and explain his story.

Once Hillary realised he held talent with the pencil, he started practising more and more, his passion and creativity growing. Coming from a traditional African home, his parents wanted him to pursue something more professional in his studies, but his talent would take him all the way to a BBC feature.

Hillary’s piece on his native language and the culture around it, as well as the Nigerian Civil War, caught the attention of the BBC in 2018 and got his talent featured worldwide.

Fast forward to 2022, and Hillary found himself in the UK. He chose to pursue studies, but not in art. Because of this, he felt he had to make some kind of other artistic contribution to his community.

Emetuche started to volunteer at Edmonton Green Library with a small group called ‘Coffee and Chats’. There, he started doing portraits for people. Eventually he would be commissioned for portrait work because of his skill at hyper-realism.

On his portraits, he said: “It’s all about people, connecting with people. I could have a conversation with someone, I can find something familiar about that person. I understand that person’s personality, and we can tie it to the portrait.”

Creativity is paramount to Emetuche. He hopes to use it to grow the already blossoming art community in Enfield.

“Art to me is about inspiring people. Basically, inspiring people, because I believe everyone has potential. Could be creativity, could be science, could be anything.

“I believe that everyone has a gift, a unique gift, and everyone’s different in their own way. I want to use my art to inspire people, to bring out the creative spirit in them.”

Hillary believes creativity can be a bridge between young people and art, and technology: “I want to balance the use of digital devices and traditional arts. I believe it’s something that can be mindful of and a way to express creativity, especially for young people.”

Hillary’s next goal is to do a live artistic demonstration for Black History Month. His Dugdale Arts Centre exhibition runs until Wednesday, 1st October.

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