Anita-Praise Nweke is a Nigerian-born British artist, educator, and advocate whose practice delves deeply into themes of identity, hybridity, and healing. Her work navigates the complexity of being a Black woman and a cultural hybrid, using art as a form of self-reflection, storytelling, and resistance. Through painting, sculpture, digital media, and textile, she embarks on an ongoing journey to uncover her most authentic self—while challenging the societal narratives that have long distorted and silenced voices like hers.
Rooted in a rich family legacy of art and education, Anita-Praise was shaped early on by her grandfather, Augustin Ifedibar Nweke—a sculptor and educator—and her father, Augustus Nweke, a painter. Their creative influence instilled in her a deep reverence for the transformative power of art as both personal expression and a catalyst for community connection. Her practice centers on the Black female experience and its many intersecting dimensions. Through her work, Nweke challenges the media’s historic dissection, fetishisation, and misrepresentation of the Black woman’s body—pushing back against erasure and narrow stereotypes. She creates space for narratives that are often missing from mainstream art, culture, and media, reclaiming power and visibility through a deeply personal and political lens.
A recurring motif in her work is Dutch Wax Fabric, commonly known as Ankara, which she digitises and incorporates into her prints. For Nweke, Ankara becomes more than textile—it is a vibrant metaphor for duality, history, and identity. Its layered origins and symbolic resonance reflect her own experience as a diasporic Black woman navigating cultural intersectionality. It serves not only as material, but as memory, metaphor, and mode of resistance.
Anita-Praise holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of the Arts London, where she explored themes of race, gender, and representation through both conceptual and material experimentation. She has exhibited widely through platforms such as Made in Arts London and Focus Art London, including during Black History Month at Manchester and Stansted Airport—celebrating Black heritage in spaces where it is often underrepresented.
Pursued a Master’s in Creative Education at the Royal College of Art, Anita-Praise is equally devoted to mentorship and inclusive pedagogy. Her vision reaches beyond the gallery space into classrooms, community hubs, and collaborative projects—centering voices that have too often been pushed to the margins.
Her work invites viewers to engage critically and empathetically—to question, to feel, and to imagine. At its core, Anita-Praise Nweke’s art is an offering: a conversation between self and society, past and future, where beauty, truth, and resistance are intricately stitched together.