Pita Ohiwerei’s beginnings in the Auchi school is evident in his art. His artworks express the joy and indefinable attraction of colour and the plastic medium of oil.
The textural effect he employs on the surface of some of his paintings lends the paintings a distant, tantalizing look, encouraging engagement by the viewer yet repelling scrutiny.
Ohiwerei was born in 1963 in Nigeria. He studied art at the Federal Polytechnic, Auchi where he teamed up with artists like Sam Ovraiti to define the Auchi fascination with colour.
He has been a full-time studio artist since leaving Auchi, painting for many years in Lagos, Nigeria before moving his studio to the US. He continues to explore the effect of colour on the human mind.
His paintings of women reading, boys playing, and other scenes reflect his origin in Nigeria but are easily accessible culturally. Colour, as he sees it, is a universal language.