Celebrating Ndi-Igbo

Dawn Okoro , a painter and University of Texas alum, is pursuing her craft while she's enrolled as a third-year law student at Texas Southern University in Houston - and yet she's become something of an accidental celebrity consort and a portrait artist to the stars. So far she's teamed up with Erykah Badu to raise awareness for the singer's nonprofit organization, and has had Shaun Robinson of "Access Hollywood" and Victoria's Secret model Nichole both commission portraits. She's shown artwork in London, and even sent a painting to a show in Australia whose organizer turned out to have appeared in a recent "Star Wars" flick. Okoro's art has recently graced the pages of Paris-based "CLAM" magazine. With minimal self-promotion Okoro has managed to sell several dozen paintings and has developed cadres of collectors in Dallas, New York and Los Angeles. While she spends her school years in Houston, she plans to make her home base Ne...

Chris Ofili (born 1968) is a painter noted for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage. He is one of the Young British Artists. He is a Turner Prize winner and his work has been a source of controversy. Ofili was born in Manchester on the 10th October 1968. He completed a foundation in art at Tameside College in Ashton-under-Lyne and studied art in London, at the Chelsea School of Art from 1988 to 1991 and at the Royal College of Art from 1991 to 1993. Ofili was established through exhibitions by Charles Saatchi at his gallery in North London and the travelling exhibition Sensation (1997) becoming recognised as one of the few British artists of African/Caribbean descent to breakthrough as a member of the Young British Artists. Ofili has also had numerous solo shows since the early 1990s including the Serpentine Gallery. In 1998, Ofili won the Turner Prize, and in 2003 he was selected to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale of that year, where his work for the Brit...