Art Dealer Street
An extended 2026 studio interview examines the emotional origins of the art, its imagery, and the artist’s account of illness, restoration, and painting.
Read the interview ↗The Atelier / A Selected Work
Prayer Without
Words.
01 The Work
Prayer Without Words · 2026
02 Medium
Oil on Canvas
03 Dimensions
30 × 40 Inches
04 Asking Price
USD $22,000
The experience
Where Words
Could Not Go.
During treatment for pancreatic cancer, there was a moment when physical suffering was overwhelming. The artist looked upward in silent prayer, searching for the strength to endure.
That private moment became the emotional beginning of Prayer Without Words. Its closed eyes and uplifted face hold fear and determination together. It offers no promise of an easy outcome.
The painting is about what remains when certainty disappears: the human instinct to hope, even without knowing what happens next.
The work itself
A Language
of Paint.
The painting asks to be encountered twice: first from a distance, then closely enough to see its surface.
Its force comes from the relationship between shadow, color, and gesture. Ochre and crimson gather around the face; deep passages of blue and darkness frame the figure. Raised pigment gives emotional weight a physical form.
From across a room, the image is immediate. Near the canvas, its movement resolves into individual decisions of paint.
I / From a Distance
The PresenceFace, light, and gesture hold the room.
II / Close to the Canvas
The SurfaceRaised pigment gives feeling a physical form.
In the artist's words
“I think of light as permission
and shadow as truth.”
Uchenna Obinabo-Mabazza · Art Dealer Street, Inside the Studio
The artist and the atelier
Art from a
Lived Place.
Uchenna Obinabo-Mabazza explores the emotional life beneath outward appearances: fear held beside resolve, beauty touched by grief, and hope sustained without certainty.
In the aftermath of cancer treatment, darkness initially dominated the imagery. Over time, the artist began noticing the world differently: flowers, sunlight, ordinary beauty, and moments of unexpected tenderness. Those discoveries live alongside the harder truths of suffering and recovery.
Each work begins with an emotion and is revised until its image carries that feeling with conviction. The painting must stand independently, both as an artwork and as a presence in a collector’s home.
From Vision to Canvas
The artist develops original compositions using contemporary digital image-making and drawing tools. Selected compositions are then realized in oil on canvas by professional studio painters under his artistic direction. This collaborative studio practice remains centered on the artist’s originating vision, from the first composition to the final painted surface.
Exhibitions & perspectives
A Growing
Conversation.
Independent editorial attention and gallery presentations place the work in dialogue with collectors, curators, and the wider art community.
SINGULART
Artist portfolio with work listed on the platform, alongside indicators for gallery favorites and inclusion in gallery curations.
Explore the portfolio ↗Clio Art Fair
Presentation at the 2025 New York edition and a published reflection on the encounter with an international audience.
Read the feature ↗Boston presentations
Resilience in Light (2025) and Healing Art at Winthrop Boston (2026) form part of the artist’s developing exhibition record.
Original painting · Private acquisition
Begin a
Conversation.
For a private viewing of Prayer Without Words, availability, or an inquiry about future work, contact Mabazza Atelier.
Inquire about the painting