The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Kunle Adeyemi

  • Adeyemi’s studio team firms up in testament of legacy

    Adeyemi’s studio team firms up in testament of legacy

    What started as an informal gathering of colleagues, young artists and studio apprentices over two decades ago at Kunle Adeyemi Studio in Mushin, Lagos, has morphed into a movement of creatives. In like manner, the group consisting of over 40 artists of different generations is making its debut exhibition that is featuring 25 of them at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos from October 4 till 17.

    Tagged Testament of legacy, time and space (A story of Kunle Adeyemi and his studio contacts), it features painting, water-colours, paintocast, paintographs, prints and mixed media by artists who drank from the pool of Dr. Kunle Adeyemi’s studio practice.

    For Adeyemi, he has in a long time quietly nurtured the idea of keeping the studio contacts while praying for the right time for it to take shape. “Now that I am retired from public service, I believe the moment has come to devote some of my time to the professional growth and development of all those who have, at one time or another, passed through the Kunle Adeyemi Studio. “It has always been a God-given privilege to serve as your Studio Instructor—whether through SIWES, Industrial Attachment, Master’s or PhD research programmes, Apprenticeship, or any other form of training,” he said at the preview session of the exhibition.

    According to him, the objectives of establishing the practice-based exhibiting group include to rekindle in us the creative spark first ignited during our studio experience; become more visible in the contemporary art space; encourage one another in fulfilling our calling as practicing artists.

    Read Also: Senate proposes 10-year passport ban on Nigerians convicted abroad

    Reassuring members that the group is voluntary, he said nobody was compelled to join, but stressed the belief in unity was strength.  

    “As a first step, I propose that we begin this year with a two-week art exhibition at the National Museum. We shall all be joint partners and beneficiaries of the project, working under principles of transparency and mutual respect. Let me also emphasise that no one in this group is above another. Though we may be at different stages of life and professional development, as artists we share the same pedestal of calling. This exhibition, if given the chance to breathe, will connect our humble beginnings with our present realities and future aspirations.

    “Let us view life as an opportunity to lift others. Each of us has stories of struggle and growth to tell; this platform is one way to honor that journey and project it into the future,” he added.

    Curator of the exhibition and CEO, Irachy Consult, Dr. Bukola Jaiyesimi said the exhibition weaves together diverse artistic perspectives on how legacy is shaped by dimensions of time and space. She noted that the exhibition ‘encourages contemplation of how art captures, distils, and projects human experiences across temporal and spatial boundaries.’

    The participating artists include Dr. Kunle Adeyemi, Kolawole K. Olojo-Kosoko,  Olumuyiwa Olusola Adeyinka Akingbade, Dr. Kafaru Abiodun, Dr.  Doyin Labode, Titi Badmus Ganiy, Asholasa Daniel, Daniel klotoe, Olusegun Oduyele, Olufemi Onagoruwa, Ojo Olaniyi, Dr. Aderinsoye Aladegbongbe, Okemakinde Abiodun, Akingbade Oluwamayowa, Taiwo Emmanuel.

    Others are Oyetumoh Yusuf, Dayo Adeyemi, Jimoh Luqman, Kehinde Adenle, Ajose Ayomide, Dr. Stella Awoh, Mofunayan, Olayemi Otuyelu Madu, Lotachukwu Ayogu-Eze and Azeez Razaq.

    One of the participants, Olumuyiwa Olusola is a water-colour artist who paints stories of resilience, joy, and tradition. His works transform everyday scenes into timeless reflections on legacy, time, together and space. With a gentle yet powerful touch of watercolor, he celebrates the struggles that lift us upward and the rhythms that bring us together.

    Through his art, Olusola shares the beauty of ordinary moments and the strength they carry for generations. His watercolor practice reflects on resilience, tradition, and human connection.

    “The fluidity of the medium allows me to capture fleeting moments while honoring the legacies that endure across time and space,” he said at the preview.

  • Yabatech, firm sign MOU on students’ training

    Yabatech, firm sign MOU on students’ training

    Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech) and Okunore Twins Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which will empower the fashion impresarios to benefit from the training offered to fashion students by the institution.

    Yabatech Rector, Dr. Margaret KudiratIbiyeye-Ladipo said the coming of the coy has further expanded the horizon of students in entrepreneurial education as students learn from experts outside the classroom thereby enhancing their skills.

    “We are signing this MOU towards executing high impact social initiative with the objective of maximising economic, cultural and development opportunities in the Nigerian fashion industry,” she said.

    Representatives of Okunore Twins Limited, Mr. Kehinde Okun ore expressed appreciation for the strategic alliance with the cradle of higher education in Nigeria. He promised that the fashion unit of the College would be a spectacle very soon.

    The Dean, School of Arts, Design and Printing, Dr. Kunle Adeyemi lauded the initiative saying it would give staff and students the much anticipated lift. “We need it, and I trust it will add value to our training potentials. It is sure a new day for fashion in Yabatech”.

     

     

     

  • Entries invited for RIBA International prize for architecture

    The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the 2016 RIBA International Prize, a new global architecture award for the world’s best new building.

    The RIBA International Prize will be awarded to a building of any type or budget and in any country, which exemplifies design excellence, architectural ambition and which delivers meaningful social impact.

    The prize is open to any qualified architect in the world, and entries close on the 8 March 2016.

    The winner will be chosen by a Grand Jury led by acclaimed architect RICHARD ROGERS and including KUNLÉ ADEYEMI, founder and principal of NLÉ,  MARILYN JORDAN TAYLOR FAIA, the dean of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Fine Arts and PHILIP GUMUCHDJIAN, founder of Gumuchdjian  Architects, Chair of RIBA’s awards committee.
    The full jury will be announced in due course.

    RIBA’s rigorous judging process will see two expert panels of jurors visit each of the shortlisted buildings twice in person, before the
    Grand Jury selects six finalists to visit once more to decide on the winning building.
    An additional prize, the RIBA International Emerging Architect Prize, will be awarded to a building designed by a practice whose oldest
    founding director is under the age of 40 at the time of the building’s completion.

    “We are thrilled to launch this new award to recognise and celebrate architectural excellence across the world. It is our intention that the RIBA International Prize will uncover the world’s most innovative and visionary architecture and spark local and global debates about the positive impact that well-designed buildings and places can have on their communities and environment.”  RIBA President Jane Duncan said.

  • Floating school offers hope in Lagos ‘slum on stilts’

    It’s been dubbed the “Venice of Africa” but comparisons between the sprawling Lagos community of Makoko and the historic Italian city begin and end at the water’s edge.

    Makoko’s makeshift huts rise from the murky waters of the lagoon around Nigeria’s biggest city, a far cry from the ornate bridges and buildings that mark out Venice’s cultural and commercial past.

    The arts transformed Venice and sealed its reputation as one of the most important centres of the European Renaissance.

    Now it is hoped that education, with the help of innovative architecture, can help create a better future for the children of Makoko.

    The prospect comes in the shape of a floating school, built entirely by locals and launched last year, whose triangular frame rises from the water like a half-built house submerged in a flood.

    The project, backed by the UN Development Fund, the Nigerian government and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, is the brainchild of local architect Kunle Adeyemi.

    His design was inspired by life in the so-called “slum on stilts” and he said that improving the neglected area required a new approach more in tune with local customs and the environment.

    “Living on water is actually a way of life… so, the question is then how do you improve that condition, how do you address the challenges of living on water in a safe, healthy and environmentally sound way?” he told AFP TV.

    Unlike Venice, which attracts millions of tourists from around the world every year, few visitors to Lagos are likely to find their way to Makoko.

    From the Third Mainland Bridge which snakes nearly 12 kilometres through the lagoon, thick wood smoke and fumes from diesel-powered generators can be seen hanging above the patchwork of corrugated iron and tarpaulin roofs.

    Fishermen on the lagoon scour the waters in search of the day’s catch. Wooden canoes — the only way to get around — ply the watery strips between the flimsy lean-to shacks and washing lines.

    The new school is also visible from the bridge, floating on 250 empty blue barrels fixed under its wooden base designed to get around the problems of periodic flooding in the area.

    Its three storeys make it the tallest structure in Makoko and with 220 square metres of floor space, it is also the neighbourhood’s biggest communal facility.

    Fishermen can tether their canoes to the base and come just to mend their nets, as much as children wanting to learn — often for the very first time — or play.

    From the top of the A-frame, under its solar panels, the high-rise buildings and lights of Lagos Island — the heart of Nigeria’s financial hub — can be seen in the distance.

    The people of Makoko eke out a living by fishing and trading. Few of the estimated 150,000 people who live in the neighbourhood can aspire to escape a life of poverty.

    Jeremiah Oleole Austin is one of the few young people to have gone on to further education.

    “I was born and brought up here so I know how the people suffer, I feel their pain, I feel their cry and I also know their happiness,” said the art student, who is also known as “Big Babba”.

    “I know what they really need in this community and which is not capable for us to do it. Without some… training or skills, how can they go places?

    “There’s only a few of us that went out into the city to see more… If there are more schools, I believe there is going to be changes in the community.”

    Headteacher Noah Shemede couldn’t agree more.

    “Every child deserves an education wherever they are,” he said. “We are on water and that doesn’t mean that we can’t go to school on water. We have to.

    “We need more schools to accommodate thousands of children that are at home. We need more schools.”

    Adeyemi for his part said the building could also be used differently — both in Nigeria and beyond.

    “Its main aim is to generate a sustainable, ecological, alternative building system and urban water culture for the teeming population of Africa’s coastal regions,” his firm, NLE, said on its website.

    “It is really just a structure that could actually be used for different forms of uses,” added the architect.

    “It could be a home, you could use the same prototype and develop that into homes, you could develop it into hospitals, you can develop it into a theatre, a restaurant, all kinds of facilities.

    “The key thing is that we have developed a prototype of building and architecture on water using local materials and local resources and available technology.”

  • Solving old problems with new discoveries

    Solving old problems with new discoveries

    • Quintessence hosts Adeyemi Saturday

    History is made every day. A popular Yoruba maxim: Ohun a ba foni se oro itan ni lola (The things that we do today becomes objects of history tomorrow) buttresses this. The reason for man’s advancement is his continuous management of, and improvement on, his historical pasts and experiences. Without this, we all would still have been chasing after games in the bushes with stone instruments in our absurd nakedness and darkness; trekking long distances on feet; sleeping in thatch houses and on hills; drinking water from the brooks; using leaves and animal skin as clothing; employing sun, moon and stars as media of timing and calendaring; utilising firewood and charcoals as fuel; using calabashes and mortar as utensils and getting killed by ignorance, among others.

    Man’s incessant renovations and innovations in his environment are the reasons we have come this far. Despite this success, there are problems begging for solutions. Kunle Adeyemi had identified some old problems in visual art and provided solutions based on his discoveries. There is, therefore, an assurance of the future. I cannot but agree to the saying that ‘A people with history are a people with future’.

    Kunle Adeyemi is a prominent contemporary Nigeria Artist with penchant for visual designs in painting and printmaking. His recent Ph.D research dwelled on some old problems in visual art practice and it proffered solutions to them through his new explorative discoveries. As one of the chips of the old the block, he was well positioned to make history count again at least for the sake of our desired posterity. In a dialogue by Kunle Adeyemi on his research titled Paintograph and Paintocast:Innovative Exploration in the Synthesis of Easel Painting band Printmaking, he posits as follows… ‘the painting practice of many artists of the first decade of the new millennium has witnessed a downward slide in artistry and technical quality. The limitations observed show that there is a need for a revamping of practice through the synthesis of easel painting and printmaking.’

    This is not about digging out the why of the plunge in the artistry and technical depth of the works of post millennium artists in Nigerian as observed by the researcher, but about the how of solving its attendant problems such as copying other artists’ subject matters, and lack of deliberate explorations and experimentations. Here, Kunle Adeyemi quickly offered innovative synthesis, a technique of easel painting and printmaking, as the percipient solution. Insightfully, he observed that there is the need also, for creating potentials that are capable of reversing the old problem of ‘limited possibilities’.

    Through this research and experiment, Adeyemi discovered new progression, which he called Paintograph and Paintocast. It is a process that brings about an amalgamation between easel painting and printmaking that could lead to new complex and multiple creative possibilities in the art studio.In his own dialogue, Professor Osa Egonwa says Adeyemi’s Paintograph and Paintocast are a procedural transmutation of techniques of one art genre into another. The ability to research and discover the possibility to transmogrify from conventional easel painting to an admixture of suitable seemly forms thus dovetailing into new techniques and collaborative possibilities.

    This explorative innovation or innovative exploration otherwise referred to as Paintograph and Paintocast, employs the use of alternative local materials like sand, laterite, sawdust, scrap metals, newspaper collage, waste rags, epoxy resin etc. for painting. The problem of regulated painting approach as a result of specified costly foreign materials is eliminated. The discovery does lead to dynamic approaches to what is now a fusion of painting and printmaking. It introduces new vocabularies, raises the limits of creativity, discourages copycat syndrome, leads to multiple translation of same ideas into artworks of different techniques that can be reproduced severally, and by and large Kunle Adeyemi has come up with body of works that dialogues on the new ways of art.

    Kunle Adeyemi produced a body of works that typifies the new discoveries. Some of the works are Heaven’s gate, Demo-O-Crazy for Whom? Treasures of the Niger Delta, The road to oil rig, Female forms etc. As usual, Kunle did not forget his roots. He dialogues with the beholders on the socio-political debacle of Nigeria as a Nation, making imposing thematic and visual statements to all and sundry. He shares his burden over his motherland with all and offers solution through his usage of curious materials and pregnant themes. Egonwa corroborates this act thus: It is no longer doubtful if visual images are vital sources of information and insight, which could serve personal and communal interest beyond mere entertainment.

    Every research is meant to proffer solution to a problem. Kunle Adeyemi through this effort, has made new discoveries, which did not only contribute to knowledge, but leads to new techniques and innovative exploration, utilization of infrequent materials and expanding the scope of limitless possibilities in both easel painting and printmaking, herewith referred to as Paintograph and Paintocast. This accomplishment is simply recompensing and edifying to our visual art history, theory and practice.