Some artists create to make people look. Favor Leo creates to make people feel, question and look inward.
At 23, the Abuja-based artist and aspiring novelist has spent years exploring the space between imagination, emotion and the darker corners of human experience. Working primarily with charcoal and acrylic, Favor describes his work as aesthetically appealing dark art—pieces shaped by deep feelings, surrealism and elements of psychoanalysis. His intention is not simply to create something beautiful, but to challenge perception and leave viewers with something to think about.
Creativity has always been part of his story. As a child, he filled his imagination with comics and short stories, never really stepping away from the instinct to create. Seven years into his artistic journey, that childhood curiosity has evolved into a practice built around creative freedom—the ability to follow an idea wherever it leads, whether it emerges from layered thoughts, emotion or simply a feeling that needs to be expressed.
But creating isn’t always comfortable.
For Favor, one of the hardest parts of being an artist has been putting himself and his work in front of people. As an introvert, sharing something so personal often felt deeply vulnerable. He would post his work and cringe at the feeling of having exposed a part of himself. Still, he kept showing up.
That persistence became part of the art itself. Favor learned that the reward isn’t always found in reactions, numbers or recognition. Sometimes, it is simply knowing that you took something that existed within you and gave it form. Expression became its own measure of progress.
Rejection brought another layer of uncertainty. Being turned down by galleries made Favor question whether his work was good enough, but those doubts have never outweighed his belief in what he creates. Instead of allowing rejection to define his ability, he has continued to create, trusting that his work can find its place without compromising what makes it his own.
Now, he is entering a new chapter.
Favor is working on a collection of paintings inspired by facing one’s fears, a project he sees as a turning point after seven years of creating. It represents a deliberate departure from what he has done before—an opportunity to confront something personal while challenging himself artistically. At the same time, he is writing an epic fantasy novel, extending his imagination beyond the canvas and into an entirely different world of storytelling.
His ambitions stretch even further. In the next three to five years, he wants his work to inspire artists to experiment, embrace individuality and resist the pressure to fit neatly into one creative identity. He also envisions a growing movement around what he calls “dark arts,” with his work contributing to a wider conversation about the emotional, psychological and aesthetic possibilities of the form.
And perhaps that is what makes Favor’s creative philosophy so compelling.
He doesn’t believe artists have to choose just one thing. A painter can be a novelist. An introvert can still put his work in front of the world. Rejection can exist alongside belief. Failure can happen without becoming an identity.
His message to other creatives is simple: try. Create. Keep creating.
Don’t become so focused on the result that you forget to live through the process. Don’t allow failure to convince you that you should stop. And don’t reduce yourself to a single dimension when your imagination is capable of holding many worlds.
For Favor Leo, art is not simply something he makes.
It is how he explores what it means to feel, imagine, question and express himself without limits.
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