Tochi J. Nworu (known as T.J. France) is a mixed media artist whose portraits are built the way memory is: in layers. Working across oil and acrylic paint, gold leaf, Ankara fabric, charcoal, and printmaking on paper, canvas, and wood, her practice layers material, culture, and the interior lives of the people she paints.

Her journey began in an eighth grade drawing class she hadn't chosen (she'd wanted Wood Shop), and it turned out to be the class that found her. A teacher who noticed her talent pushed her to keep going, and what started as an accident became an outlet, then a calling. That spark carried her to Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she earned her BFA while minoring in Biology, an early sign of a mind that refused to choose between the analytical and the intuitive. Her practice grew from drawing into painting, collage, and mixed media, with gold leaf and Ankara fabric emerging as signature materials: gold as elevation and worth, Ankara as cultural memory and inheritance.

Alongside her art, Tochi pursued medicine with the same commitment, earning her medical degree from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and completing her residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital. Holding both callings at once has been rewarding, if not always easy, and she is, in the truest sense, a healer in both. Her goal is one and the same across each: to use art and medicine as tools for inspiration, connection, and healing.