Last week, Modupe Ogunlesi, owner of Adam and Eve luxury stores located at Ikeja, Lagos, turned 70 years. Ogunlesi is a big art collector. She loves arts; she promotes art. For this, a life drawing exercise was done by some select artists to honour her. The life drawing depicted her figure and image showing the total razzmatazz of life art. She speaks to EDOZIE UDEZE on her turning 70 and what art really means to her.
Mrs Modupe Ogunlesi is a lover of the art. She does not only promote the art and its many ideals and prospects, she often surrounds herself with artists and arts. Last week when she turned 70 years, she invited some select artists, painters and multi-colourists, to do her life drawing and painting. The artists are Olu Ajayi, Osagie Osazuwa, Wallace Ejoh, Duke Asidere and Lekan Onobanjo. The drawing session was one of the series of programmes to enliven the birthday celebrations.
The artists were there with easel and drawing board, pencils and other materials. Decked in their usual studio outfits, glittering and seriously glued to the techniques of their professional calling, they set out to do what they are best known for. While Ogunlesi sat with legs crossed, decked in her usual glasses, displaying the posture and pleasantness of an achiever, the electric light beamed on her elegant face. Not once did she stir, as she looked straight towards the artists. The hall appeared quiet, as guests stood by, watching. Journalists were ready with their cameras and writing materials waiting for the question and answer session. It was indeed a glorious moment for Ogunlesi as she beamed with life and glamour.
From different views and directions, the artists fired on. Life drawing or painting of images and figures is usually the best way to discover or know who is a good artist. It is one of those rarest ways to bring visual close to reality. Now, it is no longer a make-belief. People usually stand around to witness first-hand how magical fine artists can be. This is why a lot of people see it as the best way to recreate and reassure.
According to Olu Ajayi, drawing her life on her 70th birthday was part of an honour given to her by artists. “She is not only a well-known person in the society, it is also due to her personal contributions to the art, to artists generally. So, it is an honour well-deserved. It is not always that you have artists do life drawing of personalities. No, but whenever it is done, there is always good and professional reason for it”.
Ajayi who himself is a master artist, a former chairman of Lagos State Chapter of Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) is known to be deeply committed to any project he sets out to do. He says, “Yes in her own way, she has contributed immensely to the body of art in Nigeria. She has done this over the years. She collects and she is the silent type, doing her best to uplift the art. Most of the things she has done therefore makes her deserve to be admitted into this world of art.
“The feeling of having some of your contemporaries in this sort of session is like a spark. It creates a jam session. Yes, and you feel the warmth of the togetherness. It is fun, yes it is fun. And so it is good for us to be here to do this art to give her her due place in the visual art sector”, Ajayi explains.
Duke Asidere says, “Yes it is a drawing exercise to honour her at 70. So I was invited and I came. I have done what I was supposed to do. I wouldn’t know the criteria used to choose those invited. It was a fantastic experience and the work… It was not only to draw, it was also to engage and show those artistic skills. Artists create arts and that is what we are meant for. It is our aim; it is our calling. We create and we recreate art. You create art because you are skillful. Then you look at skill, you look at character… Too many things matter when you create art in front of a lot of people. It is not the usual studio experience. You bring everything you have to bear on the process.
“She has done very well in her social life; in her investment and she has affected society in very many ways. If you deal with luxury items and other art pieces, you deserve this sort of accolade. So if she is not relevant nobody will celebrate her. She is relevant, yes, she is. Yes, as for the works, she would choose the ones she likes and then keep them in her collections”.
Ogunlesi who owns Adam and Eve Stores Ikeja, Lagos one of the most expensive luxury items stores in Nigeria took time out to speak to the press. She says “It is good to be here today. I have said it, it is a good time to say goodbye to the 60s. It is good for me. Leaving the 60s behind is so important to me because God says that being 70 is a bonus. So, I am happy to be 70. It is a gift from God”.
This life drawing exercise is part of the bridal train for me. “You know marriage is important, so also is marking 70th birthday with lots of programme like this life drawing and painting. So, it is the story of my life. It is God who has helped me to navigate my life. It doesn’t matter whether you believe what I believe. Life is like that. I look at the way things are. With the social media, it is so important, but is carries a lot of misinformation. At a stage people would rather ask you did you hear it from the horse’s mouth?. So, the more horses that are talking and the more groups they are talking to, the better. So, that is what I am doing today with the attainment of 70. I am telling my story myself”.
Ogunlesi was full of joy, exhibiting that familiar charismatic nature for which she has been known over the years. For her, life, real good life, life of deep gratitude to God, starts at 70. Her gratitude is indeed profound and real. She continues, “Yes visual arts enhance life; it adds total beauty to life, to exquisite, luxury items. It is all part of properly saying goodbye to the 60s. This drawing is part of it. At night a bigger show will happen with the people who have known me all these years. It is when to host them and be in their midst. I will tell people how I got to be who I am today. Those things that resonate in my mind that have helped me to aspire and achieve. It is not that I am right or wrong. But if you listen to how I have journeyed, it will either help you to be or not. It is about some certain principles that have helped me all these years”.
Most often Ogunlesi runs art exhibitions to juxtapose with the luxury items in her stores. At those moments, you’d see truly how arts can conveniently blend with those items to establish total beauty and loveliness. She glows also in those rare moments when great artists come around to blend with the tall dream of Adam and Eve. And in reality, she has in the past hosted some of the topmost artists in Nigeria. For her, there are so many different styles of the visual. “Yes, there are so many things of beauty that you can see from the art. If you look at the collections we have got in house, we have mixed collections, all showing beauties and loveliness. Therefore I collect things that are likely going to disappear soon, like market places because very soon things will be sold from the malls. The woman backing a baby, very soon that will sound odd. But then if you see the art, you’d know it was once like that”.
So, as she keeps the bubble on, glowing in her new emphoria of turning 70, Ogunlesi keeps her love for the art, for luxury items and all, ever aglow, ever alive and futuristic. For her art is not just life; art is futuristic, it blends with the past, this moment, to foresee the future. So, the life drawing was pungent, timely, to bring out all the glow and beauty of it all.