He has adopted a peculiar style that applies flowers and butterflies to give special beauties to human figures and images. Mainly female images, Samuel Godwin also uses brighter colours to perfect his art pieces. He uses his art to celebrate women naturalness and other gifts of human nature bestowed on man by God. A recent visit to his studios at Alagbole in Ogun State showed an artist who has chosen to be different in style and form. Edozie Udeze encountered him in his studio.
Samuel Godwin is a fantastic artist. When he graduated from University of Lagos Akoka, where he read Fine Arts some years ago, his immediate concern was to establish an endearing private art studio. Today he has had that dream fulfilled with a studio at Alagbole area of Ogun State. A visit to the studio showed a young man who is profoundly committed to his profession. As he prepares to showcase his first solo exhibition Samuel is poised and ready in his studio churning out works of art that amaze the world with beauty.
Cocooned in his sombre, quiet abode/studio in this cool area of Alagbole, Samuel feels good with himself. What it shows is that even self-imposed seclusion helps creativity to thrive. This is what he has going for him that all his works justify that level of excellence that surpass the mundane. He is a man who loves images and figures, more so, beautiful models that have imposing figures and shapes. These young female figures come in different shapes and colours. But they all turn out wonderfully well when Samuel ends up giving them different strokes of colours of oil on canvass and so on.
An encounter with him was interesting. He showed that he is not just passionate about what he does; he is also enigmatic, imbued with the zeal to ensure his first solo show comes out big and impressive. “Yes”, he began, “I am an artist, a painter. I use oil on canvass. I paint naturalism with a bit of mixture of nature which I infuse into my figures as you can see from almost all the works here in the studio. I go more for images. As you can see in this work, this particular one, it also shows when a man goes to ask a woman’s hand in marriage. This is the sort of scene that you witness in our society. I have now turned it into canvass. The inspiration behind my love for female figures is that of the narrative of when a man goes out to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage. It is the most interesting part of love life.
“The scene is usually remarkable, unforgettable. It shows how much we cherish love, marriage and family” he said. In the figures, Samuel uses flowers not just for beautification and impression but to also intersperse the naturalness of the female figures. The flowers, coming in multiple colours are then placed on the head of the lady. At times the flowers replace the heads in order to show the different blend of artistic experiment. Looked at closely, the flowers embody nature, multi-layers of beauty unprecedented in the annals of experimental pieces of visual art.
The flowers go to enhance the figurative images as well as showing that women are like flowers; they bloom, they blossom, they sprout out in their time and season. Usually the presence of beautiful women is like a decoration done with flowers of multiple colours and which come with multiple appeals as well. The models are captured in different postures and locations. They are adorned in different fashion and styles. Mostly, Samuel prefers his figures turning out in local fabrics of adire and ankara. These local African fabrics go on to accentuate their natural beauty. The result is an assemblage of images that are totally irresistible.
He said further, “What I am trying to interpret is that there are women that are doing well in their profession. There are women who are adding value not just to the family but to the entire society. You can see from one of these images how resilient the woman is in her top career and fashion. Women shouldn’t all end up in the kitchen”. In some of the adornments, he also provided information on how women use palm kernel oil for beauty. In those days and even now, some women prefer to use local juice to enhance their beauty. As an artist, Samuel is a reference point in some sense. He sees African beauty in its naturalness as something that must be preserved and celebrated.
“The body adornment of some of our women glow more when they apply this
palm kernel oil to their body. It works; it is good to the skin”, he said with some measure of assurance. Interestingly, one of the women in the pictures was even carrying an oil made from palm kernel. She carried it with care and she made it clear that it is the source of her glowing skin beauty. In the painting, Samuel used plenty of colours to demonstrate this outstanding elegance. He loves to apply deep, lovely and bright colours to impress or to bring out the subject matter better and clearer. For him, brighter colours used judiciously help to bring out all the contours of figures and images.
He said, “Yes I have this as a series. This one is titled patience. The woman is waiting for a suitor, sitting quietly and patiently. You can see how innocently and patiently she sits out there. I also tend to use beautiful colours a lot. It is what people see at first that catch their attention. Therefore I use contrast of colours to do my work. However, women generally love bright colours and I use same to bring out that attraction. I capture that to bring out the narrative. Brighter colours indeed do it for me. I also use ankara mostly because it is colourful, it is our own fashion statement and style.
Mostly also, he does his paintings under the colourful influence of gardens and parks and some homes where flowers exist. One of them taken in a park depicted a woman in total submission to nature. She glows resplendently. She is at home with the flowers as they adorned the public park. One thing is however clear in Samuel’s works. His series on maidens, on these women with different needs and in different situations, shows how desparate some women can be when they are in need of husband. Beyond the exquisite postures and the many beauties attached to the paintings, Samuel is clear about how to make women look desirable. The pictures say it all. The paintings introduce you into the habits of women, more so, when they are intent on how to ensure they leave nothing to chance to look good and appreciated.
Read Also: Joy as Kano gov reunites parents with their stolen children
Right from time, Samuel chose to use plenty colours to enhance his works. Even though he loves other medium and tries to replicate some in his works the choice of oil on canvass is deliberate and purposeful. “My points of attraction as a painter are colours. Colours inspire me; they also glow in your imagination. In fact paintings should be about contrasting colours and brighter colours that enhance the eyes. Some of my arts are just beyond painting and what have you. You need to appreciate the narratives involved in it. You need to see the application of colours and what they are meant to represent”. Samuel also does landscapes whenever it is necessary. But generally he focuses on those ingredients he learnt in the university. “Unilag taught me to look beyond my training as an artist to see even why I studied it as a course. That is the difference and it helps me to aspire, to move on fast and to be better focused. You work to make your art sellable and to appeal to people as well.
The tentative title for his exhibition in January is blossoming flowers. As at now Samuel is still on the threshold of completing his works to make enough for a solo. Usually solos come with an appreciable number of art pieces so as to attract maximum attention and patronage. Even though he has not concluded the arrangement about the art gallery to use for the exhibition, his eyes are a bit on the Thought Pyramid Gallery located at Ikoyi, Lagos. This exhibition according to him is an opportunity for him to step out into the mainstream art. “It will motivate me to do more”, he said hopefully. With some of his works done in digital form, Samuel has actually plenty to offer the art world. It is therefore an ample time to follow him into 2024 for more wonderful art pieces.
