WE ARE THE NORTH (NO BOKO...): A Tale of Williams Chechet's Artistic Exploits
Nigeria-born Williams Chechet is a supremely talented
graphics designer, illustrator and muralist who hails from Kaduna State
(Southern Kaduna prcisely) and is responsible for globally acclaimed
contemporary art pieces. Chechet who studied Industrial Design (Graphics) at
the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He had previously been studying Building
Engineering before he dropped out to study Industrial Design in his third year
in school.
'BIG WILL' as I fondly prefer to call him has been
creative since he was a kid. He said his dad always provided his brothers and
him with art materials.
Chechet started-off drawing comics and cartoon
characters. In his own words:
I remember my dad had a lot of vinyl records of Fela, James Brown, Micheal Jackson, Bonny M, and so on. I would pick these up and start drawing the covers. The Fela album covers done by the famous Lemi Gwariokwu really inspired my early creative years. I became active in art in my secondary school, Federal Government College, Enugu, where I took part in art competitions that I hardly won. But I started making posters with papers and markers for school clubs. I joined the Press Club where we would create cartoons of students’ life in the dormitories. I started computer-based design when I met my friend, Jesi Yakubu, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 2002. We started designing as a team. Then I dropped out of Building Engineering to start afresh in Industrial Design at the Diploma level. We created a design and merchandise company called GRD, Graphic Research Department, where we made and designed T-shirts, album covers for musicians and other branding services.
I remember my dad had a lot of vinyl records of Fela, James Brown, Micheal Jackson, Bonny M, and so on. I would pick these up and start drawing the covers. The Fela album covers done by the famous Lemi Gwariokwu really inspired my early creative years. I became active in art in my secondary school, Federal Government College, Enugu, where I took part in art competitions that I hardly won. But I started making posters with papers and markers for school clubs. I joined the Press Club where we would create cartoons of students’ life in the dormitories. I started computer-based design when I met my friend, Jesi Yakubu, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 2002. We started designing as a team. Then I dropped out of Building Engineering to start afresh in Industrial Design at the Diploma level. We created a design and merchandise company called GRD, Graphic Research Department, where we made and designed T-shirts, album covers for musicians and other branding services.
Before
I graduated I had done an album cover design for a Washington DC-based Nigerian
rapper called Kahli Abdu, called ‘The Ministry of Corruption’. This, I would
say, is my favourite cover art. Kahli Abdu introduced me to MI Abaga. I got a
phone call from MI Abaga one day, out of the blue. It was one of the most
shocking moments of my life. MI asked me to come to Lagos and work for him.
Three weeks later, we met at the airport in Abuja and flew to Lagos. That was
September 2012. I worked on the graphics for his website at the time while he
was recording the second installment of his popular mixtape ‘Illegal Music’. I
designed the cover for that and also the first ‘Illegal Music’ mixtape, which
didn’t have a cover at the time.
I
subsequently worked as a Graphics Designer and a Creative Director for the
label he owned called ‘Loopy Music’ and also some joint projects at Chocolate
City. After four years working for him and Loopy music, I decided to go into
the corporate world to work for a branding company, after which I decided to be
a freelance graphic designer. I found enough time to focus on my related
passions: painting murals, graffiti and digital illustrations. I started doing
digital illustrations for merchandise companies and branding. After the Hard
Rock Cafe commission, more projects started coming in. Painting the graffiti
and walls of Hard Rock Café, Lagos surprisingly was my first big graffiti
project. Before then I was just painting my friends’ rooms for fun.
Chechet's latest art project, We are the North, is a
series of beautiful illustrations from Northern Nigeria, where Williams was
raised, influenced by pop art – an art movement which involves imagery from
popular culture being visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or
combined with unrelated material. We are the North featurers Northern Nigerian
icons – from the first president of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe (who was born in
Northern Nigeria, Zungeru, Niger State), to the only prime minister of an
Independent Nigeria, Tafawa Balewa.
We
are the North will be exhibiting for the first time at The
Moorhouse Hotel in Ikoyi, Lagos in conjunction with Alliance Français de Lagos.
The exhibition opens on the 3rd of June at 5pm and the pieces will show till
the 16th of June.
The event is free and you can RSVP for the opening day
event here: wearethenorth.rsvpify.com
Here are tips of this iceberg called Williams Chechet:
Special thanks to Kelo Okeke
Didam
Laah
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