Category: Arts & Life

EDOZIE UDEZE writes on the outstanding art exhibition by Stanley Dudu, Dodd Brown and Ucenna Ohagwu that will open on September 24 in Lagos. It is themed figures and colours in which paintings and mixed media predominate

An exclusive panoply of oil and acrylic paintings, as well as mixed media works will be on display in an exhibition titled Figures and Colours, at Angels and Muse: 5, Sumbo Jibowu Street off Ribadu, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The exhibition,  featuring three artists: Stanley Dudu, Dodd Brown and Uchenna Ohagwu, opens on Saturday, September 24 and runs till Sunday, September 25, 2022, at 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm. The Exhibition which has already began to garner commendations from industry previewers, was organized by Lucid Grand, and curated by Udemma Chukwuma.

“We are delighted to present the recent works of this amazing painters. Our informed choices of these three artists were based on their unique perceptions and expressions of figures, compositions and colours. We are inviting art patrons, enthusiasts and connoisseurs to come see the works,  and we assure you of a fulfilling and delightful viewing experience,” declared Chukwuma.

For over a decade,  Stanley Dudu has established himself as an artist of repute after graduation from art school.  His knack for  unapologetic expressions of the female, feminine and femininity draws from a philosophical underpinning of life, growth and matrimony. His multi-thematic explorations are carried through with a multi-media ability that allows him to express his ideas and concepts  in various media particularly in charcoals and pastels. His profile had already chalked up three solo exhibitions and well over thirty group exhibitions nationally and internationally.

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Dodd Brown is a contemporary Nigerian artist whose paintings interrogate myriad subject matters mostly drawn from life experiences.  His works engages the mind in a manner that entangles the viewer in the discourses of his canvas. He is also prolific in different media.

Brown is a mixed-media artist bent on distinguishing himself in each of the media he explores. His works in woven fabrics, newsprints and paintings  on canvas are determinedly an enterprise in multi-talented creativity. A notable feature of his styles is what he calls  FABRICation. His art keeps evolving but  not falling short of adventure and creativity. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree at University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State  from the Department of Fine Arts and Design.

Uchenna Ohagwu is a multimedia Nigerian artist on a quest for self-expression. Clearly a creative with a lot to say, he engages with different media and experiments with unique elements, styles and forms. His evolution as an artist spans the periods of grounding in drawing during the early 80s and the influence of Uli scripts from his village (insert his village name here) to the urban explosion of the golden era of hip-hop in the city partly stimulated by comics and graffities.

Born in Enugu State, he nurtured his artistic knowledge at the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) Enugu where he was exposed  to formal figure studies and techniques. He honed his skills all through the four years of his training program in painting, drawing and design. He completed his training in 2003, acquiring a HND in Fine Arts and Design.

His inspiration comes from the conflicts and realities of the 21st century Nigeria. He explores his creative concepts across mixed media which includes digital art. He avers that an interplay of his lived experiences  and his conscious study of organic  layers of meanings and structured existence has led  him to the muse #horiverti, which in time has transformed to a style of drawing and painting.

This unique style display intricate renditions of soft edge, freehand renderings with horizontal and vertical lines- something like a map which to him is an engagement with a test of integrity, discipline and consistency in trying to learn or negotiate his way through life’s multi layered structures on the canvas. This also serve as a visual metaphor of therapeutic solution of reconstruction and restructuring needed for progress and growth in life.

Title: Daughter of Grace

Author: Assistant Pastor Bernice Olawunmi Ifaturoti

Year of Publication: 2022

Reviewer: Yomi Layinka (at the author’s 90th birthday celebrations)

Daughter of Grace is the autobiography of Assistant Pastor Bernice Ifaturoti, JP. It is dedicated to her late husband Peter Adeyeye Ifaturoti who, according to the author “showered me with so much love I have enough to share with those around me”.

Written within the covers of a modest 130 pages, it contains 10 short but truly engaging chapters, staring with the one in which she describes her very remarkable experience as an 84-year-old involved in a scary surgical operation that could have gone very wrong. Thankfully, it didn’t.

She goes on to regale the reader with recollections of her birth, school years and the unforgettably soft memories of her Prince Charming who departed from her just when their flowers were blossoming.

She caps it up with stories about her ‘Pauline conversion’ in 1990 and the Redeemed Years during which she met Jesus Christ anew; about how she got hooked on Him until she became a worker in His vineyard where she still serves today as an assistant pastor at ninety!

This remarkable example of amazing commitment to the service of God and humanity underscores the fact that it is never too late to be called to serve God. The book gracefully winds down with recollections of how she became a Jerusalem Pilgrim and her random thoughts on life and living, on widowhood and the everlasting life of purpose.

Chapter Two deals with her parentage and her multiple cultural roots — both animist and Christian – in Ilesa, Western Nigeria. It details the  polygamous setting of her childhood and speaks to the intriguing hierarchies of relationships, especially between her father’s nine wives and his twenty three offspring.

This draws comparative parallels with contemporary realities in which monogamy seems to privilege possessiveness over community sharing. The way she describes it in approving terms, that era of shared love and forbearance, is a rebuke to today’s culture of individualism and the dwindling demonstration of love and mutual respect, even among families and siblings of the same mother.

Her narrative also spoke to the unusual liberal attitude of her late father, Pa Benjamin Olubode Fagbemi, who demonstrated an uncanny love for his children’s education in an era when schooling was still a rarity, especially for the girl child. Yet, he allowed all 23 of his children to go to school notwithstanding their sex nor the hierarchy of their mothers. This chapter also evokes the general state of the Ilesa community as it records aspects of pre-independence Nigeria. It recalls the wholesome nature of the education that children received in those days; and the instructional use to which folktales  were deployed.

She longingly remembers one of the most legendary dramatis personae of those folk stories, Ijapa, the ubiquitous and cunning tortoise whose conniving wife was Yannibo. She reminds the reader of the simple yet  impactful lessons derived from those folksy constructions and of the songs and responses between the adult storytellers who led the songs; and their giddy audiences of impressionable little children who enthusiastically chorused in return.

Some of the popular Yoruba folk songs of that era later made their ways into popular imagination through the works of musical artistes like Fela, Tunji Oyelana and Jimi Solanke, among many others.

Towards the end of that second chapter, she wrote very proudly about ‘Brother John’, her elder brother, who was admitted on full scholarship in 1944, into the famous Government College, Ibadan; from where he became (along with the likes of Chinua Achebe and Mabel Segun)  one of the pioneer students of the University College, Ibadan in 1948.

He was later admitted into Cambridge University for his graduate studies before returning home to become Nigeria’s first Professor of Computer Science.

But was he the first professor of computer science in Nigeria? My personally long-held view was that the distinction belonged to the late Prof. Olu Longe of the University of Ibadan. This belief was supported by several Internet searches where I have read and heard the same version of that history until my recent reading of Mama Ifaturoti’s book, in which she claimed the same feat for her late brother.

Not sure of what to believe, I googled it up again and initially found the same, old results crediting late Prof Olu Alonge — until I stumbled on a 2001 inaugural lecture at the University of Lagos by another professor of computer science, Prof J.O.A. Ayeni. Towards the end of the lecture entitled “Computing Culture: the State of The Nation”, he requested the indulgence of the Vice Chancellor to acknowledge a few of the notable people who had contributed to making him what he had become.

Apart from the typical acknowledgment of God and family, the very next person he offered credit was a certain Prof. Olasupo J. Fagbemi. According to him, “One person I believe God used to drag me into computing is the first professor of computer science in Nigeria, late  Prof Olasupo J. Fagbemi”. It would appear then that our author, Mrs Bernice Ifaturoti, is on firm grounds having been supported in her claims by no less a subject matter authority than a professor of computer science himself!

In chapter three, “Bernice goes to school”: As the earlier story of ‘Brother John’ demonstrated, Pa Fagbemi was a lover of education  who did his best to give his children opportunities without discrimination against or in favour of any set of children or their gender. Young Bernice would end up in a teacher training college after which she began a long teaching career that lasted thirty three and a half years. Like her brother, John, mathematics was the favourite subject which she taught with gusto over those decades in several cities like Onitsha, Benin, Ibadan, Ile Ife and Lagos where she spent her longest teaching years.

Then, we get to read the story of how she met Prince Charming. Starting from page 24, our author wrote of the first time she set her eyes on this handsome and charming prince, who was from one of Ilesa’s  ruling houses when she was barely 14 years of age; of how “he greeted me and I greeted him”; of how his relentless pursuit of love over the next nine years eventually culminated into her marriage into royalty on the 17th of October 1955. The blissful marriage was to last another 34 years before her prince charming left her in limbo in 1989. Before he transitioned into eternity however, the couple had had six beautiful and wonderful children — three boys and three girls – a full quiver of arrows indeed!

In this book of recollections, I found a very short but interesting story of “The Gold Thief” on page 40. It recounted the day when “Ojuole” came visiting the Ifaturotis. The tale concludes by drawing a parallel between the tragic end of the suspected gold thief and a long-held superstition about how according to her, “gold thieves almost always ended their lives in fire!”

Faith Michael does not appear to you as a Fine Artist. The first impression you have of her is: here comes a model. But she is a painter who initially wanted to study Library Information Science. And then suddenly hand of providence took her to Fine Arts at the Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State where she specialized in painting. EDOZIE UDEZE encountered her at a public function in Lagos. And her responses reveal a lot about how the journey began.

Faith Michael became a visual artist by accident.  In fact, in the art circle she is simply referred to as an accidental artist.  A lovely looking lady, at the first encounter you’d mistake her for a model.  Her bearing shows a lady who might not be able to handle a brush or know how to mix colours and face easel or drawing board.  But she is not scared of the rudiments of her profession even though she did not set out to be an artist.

Encountering her at a public function was exciting.  Although quiet and a bit withdrawn, her eyes darted endlessly in tune with the happenings around her.  Then she beamed a harmless smile, almost impeccably so as this reporter approached her…  She was seated in company of other male artists, some her mentors, while others her senior colleagues.  Her eyes tilted while the introduction held.  “You look more like a model, are you one?”  was the first poser thrown at her.  ‘No’, she responds with precision.  “I am a Fine Artist”.  I am a graduate of Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State.  It was there I read Fine Arts, with attention on painting.  I didn’t plan to read Fine Arts.  But it happened when I went to collect my post UTM form.  They mistakenly filled Fine Arts for me.  And so the journey to the unknown began”, she confesses

She continues, “when this happened I just blended with it.  It was not an easy one for me.  I had to put in all my energy, all my strength to start all over.  I was focused, determined to make the best out of it.  I succeded in school.  After school, I came over to Lagos where I work in the Studios of Simple Plans Studio.  It is owned by Wallace Ejoh.  He is my mentor.  The Studio is located in Ikorodu, Lagos State”.

Barely one year at the studio, Faith is poised to do more artistic exploits.  “I have learnt so much by being a studio artist.  What I have learnt in the studios in less than one year cannot be compared to what I learnt in five years at school.  The studio experiences give you more exposure, more ideas on how to dream and achieve more as an artist.

“Yes, I paint.  That’s all I do”, she responds with a smile.  “I paint for my self.  I have my own studio within.  It is interesting.  It is fun.  They made us believe arts is hard.  But with Ejoh it is easy.  Just listen to instructions, and you’d see it is easy to work”.  For now, soft spoken Faith intends to exhibit.  She is working seriously to do a show.  “For now”, she says cheerfully, “I have over eleven works that I have completed.  Definitely I want to exhibit someday soon.  For now I will do a joint show.  As time goes on, probably next year, I plan for a solo”.

Faith does more of images and figures.  They appeal to her more and this also gives her plenty of joy.  Often too, as time permits, she does life drawings.  “Yes, I model also” she finally lets the cat out of the bag.  And that settled the curiosity.  She explains that it was the strict parental upbringing she had that helped her to navigate through life.  “My father was strict.  At a point I thought he was being too rigid.  But later I realized that based on that, I am what I am today.  I have begun to make my parents proud of me.  But then Benin is a place I never liked.  Young people move about as if they have no future plan.  That level of seriousness of people growing up with dreams was not seen in the lives of some youths.  So I needed to move on”.

With her father as a pastor, her worldview was certainly different from others around her.  Initially, she wanted to go to the University of Benin to study Library Information Science before the hand of providence took her instead to Auchi to study Fine Arts.  Today it is all a glorious story of this accidental young lady artist who became a painter, an artist so given to her career.

 

Author:                Sope Afolayan

Title:      Stop Thinking Outside The Box!

Year of Publication: 2020

Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

 This is a theme that resonates with the populace these days.  More so, it resonates in the minds of those who want to move on in their quest to make things better than they are.  And so Sope Afolayan, the author of this book chose the title Stop Thinking Outside the Box.  It is time therefore when old things should pass away.  And let new things, new ideas, fresh ways of approach and so on, hold away in the way people handle projects, dreams and jobs.

The author, Afolayan is clear about what the book is all about.  Apart from being a motivational book stuffed with some already known ideas on how to create wealth, inspire oneself, solve problems in more accelerated ways, it is a book that imbues curiosity to find lasting solutions to the challenges of humanity in the areas of health, economy, education, politics, name it.

The terminologies employed by the author make it more fascinating to read.  “It usually takes a degree of creative obsession to develop ingenuity and formulate groundbreaking ideas that transcend thinking outside the box”.  In other words, for there to a steady road to progress in all facets of human lives, then let the status quo be obliterated.  It is time to forget the usual routine, the old ways of doing things.  The time for technology and the new normal has come.  Time for everyone who wants to make it in life to break the barriers and move on.  Whether self imposed or mechanically induced; it is time to try new ideas.  Some of the new ideas have to be disruptive, hard and far-reaching for them to take people to the next level, next stage.

And so if a nation wants to remain poor, and bankrupt, let it remain innovatively bankrupt.  What this means is that people, policy-makers, policy-formulators and so on, have to continually think ahead.  Nations that have moved out of the box in their resolve to move on ahead, have since advanced better and faster.  On page 6, it says: Yes, “it is time to create a new world order!… this book will trigger the minds that re-imagine the future, redesign why we exist and take the lead in a disruptive world”.

Done into six chapters, each has a new approach entirely to tackle the ever-problematic thinking within the box.  No, it is now time to break the box, smash it if you will, so long as there will be meaningful results to resolve problems.  When people are boxed in their thinking while others still think out of the box, what then is the solution?  Now when you smash the box, what then becomes the norm?  With various instances to buttress his points, Afolayan situates that when people are afraid to dare, progress becomes a hurdle.  This book gives insights.

On page 12, he says: “the box connotes all forms of limitations we create in our imagination, doubt, unbelief, tradition, status quo, complacency, compromise, stagnancy and all the by-products of our mindsets mostly implanted by society.  You must always think about things differently, look at things differently and do things differently”.  Then he throws the big one-“ are you set to come out of your shell? or are you ready to break the box?”.  Once therefore the box is broken, there are no more hindrances; you move on, you dare, you create, you make deeper advances in your career and all.

So, being futuristic is also part of it.  “We must consciously innovate before the need for the innovation ever arises.  That is to say, you must develop the lifestyle of imagining future possibilities and always deliberately innovate”.  The concept the author adopts is explicit.  It helps to make the book easier to assimilate for the ideas themselves are problem-solvers.  And so in chapter two, we move, for it is time to move to higher grounds.  The world moves at a faster pace.  Even yester years technologies, as fanciful as they appeared, are no longer binding today.  So nations; people involved in planning have to invest heavily in research in order to guarantee tomorrow.  Ideas have to be allowed to incubate, well-honed for the sake of tomorrow, for the sake of averting disasters in time to come.

Chapter three – ‘defy the red sea’, is more audacious.  On page 71, Afolayan infers: “Anti-conventional thinking encourages meditating upon a situation in order to build unconventional connections between the situation and other information in your mind”.  With this, the book says that people should not allow impossible situations to deter them.  With many examples espoused in the chapter, it is left for us to limit limitations or set limit for limitations.  In other words, there is nothing too difficult for the willing mind to subdue.  Challenge your guts.  “Provoke your instincts.  And think like there is no box”, page 77.

Chapter four titled “Crazy awesome ideas’ starts with positive concepts to set the mind on the edge of progress.  Afolayan thrives on examples, familiar ones for that matter that agitate the mind and dares you to thrive.  If you have obsession for creativity, move on, do not delay, do not procrastinate. 

Chapter five is on ‘my mysterious odyssey’, with more critical examples.  These common examples are mentioned to help people achieve.  Many people have moved outside the box both in the distant past and the recent past to achieve great feats.  No idea is really unachievable, insurmountable!

Chapter six is on ‘Days of future past!  What is the history of the future or what is the future of history?” the author rather asks reflectively.  This comes in handy because those who will control the future are those who are limitless in their imaginations, in their thought-process.  With appropriate illustrations and life-saving references, the author has indeed presented a book that is poised to save lots of people from allowing their dreams to fizzle out.  It is a book infused with plenty of thought-provoking ideas, concepts and forcefulness to make it where others are to laid back to try.  Minus a few errors here and there it is good to build the mind and reawaken dreams and imaginations.