Artist and photographer, Issac Emokpae has urged Nigerian youths to imbibe the spirit of hard work and be creative so as to achieve excellence.
Emokpae said that youths must be patient and think out what they want to do to be self-sufficient.
He said that they should ask questions from experience people before delving into anything they want to do.
“Nigerian youths need creative ideas to excel; they should not dream of jobs that are not there.
“The question has to be, will I want to buy and sell? Do I like what I want to go into? Do I have to create and enjoy what I am about to create?
“When that is done, there is a market in Nigeria to sell things, once it is well packaged,’’ he said.
The artist also advised youths not to focus on material gains but on hard work.
“When they work hard in life, they will help themselves and contribute to the country’s GDP.’’
Emokpae regretted that youths of today were impatient and they see themselves as masters of knowledge when they were ignorant of many things.
“They want to spend money lavishly without working for it and they never think of bearing any responsibility, either at home or in the society.’’
He urged them to be of good conduct and behaviour, to enhance their personalities.
Emokpae studied Art at the University of Lagos but spent most of his life focusing on photography in fashion and journalism for clients.
His clients include 234 NEXT, Tiffany Amber, Elan, AD Consulting and Nigeria’s leading advertising agencies.
He has won many awards, which include the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) “Save Our Treasures” art competition in Troyes, France in 1996 and the Hasselblad Masters, Semi Finalist Award for Photography in 2007.
Some of his works are “Autum Series’’; “Monad Series”; “Peace on Earth-1990”; “Exchange of our Treasures-2000’’; “Reconstruction in Reverse-2010’’ and “Body only-2010”. (NAN)