Story
This drawing “Lucid” was very loosely referenced from the photograpghs Okafor took of his friend Kiran and predominately referenced from what I he saw of her in a dream.
Around the age of 23 Okafor bought a little journal and avidly decided to write down each vivid dream he had as soon as he woke up.
Several years following he continued to do so until quite recently he stopped. Okafor was no longer able to differentiate a dream from reality. Both worlds felt like a dream in which he was completely aware of his breathing and fully aware of his conduct in any environment he found myself in.
Photographic references are a necessary guide for Okafor when developing tangible visual ideas to draw from. But his original point of creative development is usually formed first in a vivid dream – the source of all his artistic creativity.
Normally for Okafor, during the process of creation, reference photos become less relevant and later abandoned.
There’s a flow which happens naturally and organically when he is in the zone drawing. So much so that before tangible references and concepts were established, the initial depicted expression of a subject model seen in a dream of Okafor illuminates and reveals the true image he wanted to capture in the first place Click Stages of Evolution to see the work in progress.
