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Of course, two creative minds would always join forces! This is more to be expected when they consider themselves kindred spirits. Fate had neatly scripted the meeting between the Lagos art scene’s acknowledged “guru” of ceramic sculpture Ato Arinze and the US-based artist, Solomon Isekeije. The two artists – Arinze and Isekeije – share so much in common, their interaction would later confirm to them. Both wish to use art to improve the environment.
It had started with a “chance” first encounter at an exhibition held at the Goethe-Institut’s former waterfront premises along Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue in Victoria Island, Lagos. Facebook told Isekeije more about what he would like to know about his new-found friend.
One of the logical fallouts of this creative symbiosis was the joint exhibition, which opened on Saturday, August 24 at the Quintessence’s new location close Ikoyi’s Parkview Estate gate. Titled Primal Rebirth, it featured ceramic sculptures, prints and drawings and is on until September 8.
At the press briefing cum briefing, held at Quintessence’s Q-Café, the two artists enthused about the similarity of their works. Isekeije had trained first trained at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife, where he was mentored in sculpture by Professor Agbo Folarin.
Professor Folarin, the dreadlocks-sporting artist recalled, had introduced him “to the dynamics of various sculptural techniques, strength of materials and material applications through riveting lectures and the opportunity to assist [him] on his public art commission projects”.
Arinze, a 1991 Yaba College of Technology sculpture graduate, has honed his skills with clay during his over 20 years of studio practice as a ceramic sculptor. “I enjoy working with clay,” he declares in his artist statement. “The vessel for me is a metaphor for the world, the surface a canvas. It’s my belief that one who can model perfectly, rounded pot can equally make the best from life. He can also influence many.”
The artist, whose works are highly sought after by art patrons, has in addition facilitated many seminars and workshops on creativity, art business, pottery and sculpture. “My thoughts, concepts and feelings are influenced by nature and events around the world,” he further explained. “All this determines the fate of a given vessel. The shape and forms of each work depends solely on my vision as inspired by activities in our environment.”
The works of both two artists seethe with restrained emotions. In a world where, more often than not, unbridled passions overrule rationality, they stand out as solitary rocks in their quest for change and the deeper meaning behind it all. They do not lose themselves in frenzies of religious self-righteousness but seek through their works to express their hopes and aspirations for a better world. Arinze, for instance, explained: “When thinking of man’s inhumanity to man, the destruction of the ecosystem and the conflict and instability all around the world, the urge to punch or perforate the vessels with holes and lacerations become apparent. However, when a concept is inspired by the beauty of nature and the celebration of good deeds, I am moved to embellish the surface of the vessels with beautiful motifs.”
The coherence of the two artists with their mediums is irrefutable. While Arinze frantically seeks to claw his way from out of the chaos of his environment, Isekeije grapples with his experiences of diverse culture and his African identity in the Diaspora. While producing his works, Arinze is mainly motivated by the urge to share, give and love as he seeks enlightenment and the understanding of peaceful human co-existence. Isekeije goes through the path of “research and artistic investigation”, edging his materials “to their logical limits and beyond”. The University of Maryland Eastern Shore lecturer added: “Sometimes, my experiments yield the desired result and quite often the opposite is the case. This phenomenological approach results in various projected and inadvertent [outcomes] incorporated into my mixed media art pieces.”
Arinze’s patented decorative ceramic pots and nameless contortions with fired clay might as well be logical extensions of Isekeije’s ceramic sculptures like “Sonnet to the Red Moon”, “Totem to the Palm-wine Drinker”.
But Arinze’s “Syria” parodies the incoherence of the intrigues in the crisis-torn Middle Eastern country. A lacerated and contorted ceramic vase with simulated cracks is an apt metaphor for the events in that country. Besides the obvious allusion to the anti-Assad insurgencies and divisions even among Syrian rebels, the metaphor could be extended to the logic-defying intrigues of the US and other Western powers as well as the obduracy the embattled president’s backers.
Obvious in Isekeije’s works are his exploration of the psychological effects of acculturation. His serigraphy offering, “Irinkeredo” (Constant Traveller), alludes a psychological journey through the Diaspora experience of an African. In the work, a traveller – depicted as a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” – stands at a crossroad carpeted with an American flag and with iconic African and American images as a backdrop. While he is trailed by his cultural, mental and meta-physical baggage, he assumes a chameleonic personality which is captured in his altered physical appearance.
A confluence of ideas divergent ideas, the artist seeks to condense them in visually-coherent images. He struggles through the dense thickets of cryptic images to express what he wants his viewers to accept as “the collaboration between art and science and an attempt to draw a correlation between man and his universe.”
Isekeije currently teaches sculpture, ceramic and printmaking at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. According to the artist, he manages a state-of-the-art computer laboratory, which he had secured his course redesign grant. “My primary objective in the classroom is to inspire my students and help them cultivate a sense of personal and artistic identity. The idea is to teach my students to explore from within, understand and learn how to become relevant [in their societies] by defining their personal worldview. Every day in my classroom, I pursue this goal, one student at a time.”
The exhibition’s rallying call to use art as an agent of change is in sync with the activities of both artists. Arinze, for instance, as the co-founder and co-coordinator of the art collective, Artzero, has been actively involved in the promotion of the works of young, upcoming artists within and outside Lagos. As one of Artzero’s helmsmen, he was instrumental to the group’s flagship exhibition, Art on the Mainland.
“Through our art, we can draw strength to push our society forward,” Isekeije said. Before the coterie of art journalists, who attended the preview, he spoke of self-definition. This implies defining one’s own personal identity.
The MFA degree holder of the Old Dominion University is one of the brains behind the UK-based Theoo Foundation, which seeks to rehabilitate less-privileged members of the society.
His joint exhibition with Arinze launches him back into an evolving art scene he had left behind 13 years ago. This exhibition is a precursor of his planned collaboration with locally-based artists in his quest to improve the society. He, for instance, decried the dreariness of Nigeria’s flagship airport, Murtala Mohammed International Airport and offered to work free of charge to upgrade the airport’s aesthetic value.
Change, for both artists, begins with each individual.
