TerraKulture to Serves Ogunwo’s Cocktail

Rebecca Ejifoma

Smile (1) By Bolaji Ogunwo

Art lovers and connoisseurs have been called to pay attention with their eyes, as TerraKulture Art Gallery serves Ogunwo’s different flavours of cocktail for visual consumption through his solo exhibition on 8^th of March at 4 p.m.

The exhibition of paintings, which will run from 8^th to 15^th of March at the TerraKulture Victoria Island Lagos, is titled Visual Cocktail and will exude the artist’s 30 works ranging from oil, acrylic, pastel, water colour and mixed media.  According to Bolaji Ogunwo several people have mounted pressure on him to paint Nigerian traditional art but he needed to create a niche.

At a press conference on Thursday, the artist said, “Visual Cocktail is a bid to satisfy the appetites for aesthetics and knowledge through orchestration of colours that are visually edible, coupled with thoughts and values taught by the great minds. It’s an attempt to express timeless truth and proven ideologies opined by great minds in visual language.”

He expounded that his art practice spanning over a decade has witnessed myriad of critique and appreciation by fellow artists, collectors and connoisseurs alike. However, somewhere along the line “I found these philosophical anvils on which I have hammered my creative skill into a definite shape.”

The Chase

Citing Albert Einstein’s famous quote, Ogunwo explained, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result is insanity” coupled with Shiv Khera’s words, “Winners don’t do different things; they do things differently”, therefore, Ogunwo decided not to do different things rather do the common things uncommonly well. “This time, I’m bringing the words of great minds in a visual language as a reminder to our people, because I discovered that the reading is going down the drain,” he said.

Among the works to be displayed include: Pensive, Will Power, the Voyage in series 1, 2 and 3; Vision, Lindigo and Elmina Castle among others. “As a lecturer as well, my rich texture is not just to showcase to people but a commendable feat that has received global recognition; hence, I have consolidated my bond with my palette to mix out works that are didactic and enduring,” adding, “I want to inspire people to flag their wings and fly.”

According to the artist, “I deemed it exigent to bring to the public glare, the aesthetics sensibilities that concluded in my art. I have ventilated in colours, places, events and occurrences that I have witnessed in recent times; I have got something to say.”

Meanwhile, Ogunwo had his first solo exhibition in 2008 titled, “Women and War.” An indigene of Ogun state, he graduated from the University of Lagos in 2000.

With an attempt to chart a course for a stylistic and thematic direction, which was quite cumbersome according to him, Ogunwo urged, “I try to interpret words of great minds in a visual language. I hope one or two persons will learn and take to from here. Enjoy your drink!”