Winifred Otowa is a Nigerian visual artist based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her painting practice is rooted in storytelling and cultural memory, exploring Black identity, migration, and belonging. Through bold colour and layered symbolism, she reimagines African myths and lived experiences, creating work that carries emotion, memory, and a sense of connection across cultures and places.

I paint to preserve stories that might otherwise be forgotten, reconnect people with their heritage, and create spaces where African histories, myths, and contemporary experiences are seen, remembered, and shared across generations and cultures.

Winifred Otowa is a Nigerian visual artist based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her practice is rooted in storytelling, memory, and cultural preservation, using painting to explore identity, belonging, and lived experience between cultures.

Growing up in Nigeria and now living in the UK, Winifred's work is shaped by the emotional and cultural shifts of migration. This in-between space becomes central to her practice, where memory, history, and present experience overlap. Through painting, she reflects on what it means to carry heritage across distance, and how stories evolve when retold in new environments.

Her work reimagines African myths, histories, and everyday lived experiences through a contemporary lens. Rather than presenting these narratives as fixed or historical, she treats them as living stories—fluid, emotional, and open to reinterpretation. Figures, symbols, and objects appear throughout her work as carriers of meaning, connected to African and British cultural histories as well as personal memory.

Colour plays a central role in her practice. Bold, vibrant tones serve as emotional language, expressing joy, tension, nostalgia, and reflection. Her surfaces are built through layering—oil, acrylic, spray paint, graphite, and charcoal—allowing her to move between control and spontaneity, creating compositions that feel both intuitive and intentional.

Her process includes techniques such as colour pouring, swipe gestures, and layered mark-making, letting chance and emotion guide the work and creating surfaces that feel alive and responsive. Each painting becomes a space where stories are not only depicted but felt.

Winifred draws inspiration from artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Harmonia Rosales, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, whose practices centre Black representation, cultural hybridity, and layered visual storytelling. Their influence appears in her commitment to reimagining narratives and creating space for visibility, memory, and cultural connection.

At its core, her practice explores connection between past and present, home and displacement, personal and collective memory. She is interested in how painting can hold emotion and preserve stories that might otherwise be lost or overlooked. Through her work, she hopes to create recognition for those navigating similar experiences, while opening pathways for wider audiences to engage with African histories and diasporic life in a more intimate, human way.