Joseph Eze
Born in 1975 in Nigeria, Joseph Eze is a mixed media artist who incorporates painting, sculpture, and installation techniques. Eze graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2001 with a Second Class Upper Degree in Fine and Applied Art and a concentration in painting. Eze’s work in Nigeria Now incorporates large scale painting with textual fragments in a conceptual approach that examines the boundaries between traditional and contemporary Nigerian culture. Eze has taken part in over ten exhibitions to date and three solo exhibitions, including Inside of Me (Castedown Gallery, Lagos, 2002), What They Did Not Teach Me in Art School (Tribes Art Gallery, Lagos, 2009), and Hyphen (Nike Art Gallery, Lagos, 2011). International exhibitions include the Independence Exhibition (Gallerie Benedicte, Vienna, 2012) and Art Monaco (2012). Eze was also a finalist for the 2012 National Art Competition in Nigeria. Eze lives and works in Lagos.
Ike Francis
Ikechukwu Francis Okoronkwo was born on the Lagos mainland of Nigeria in 1970. He graduated as a sculptor from the University of Port-Harcourt in 1995 and earned an M.F.A. in painting in 2001 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, under the tutelage of Prof. Chike Aniakor. Francis had been influenced deeply by the conceptual expressions of Professor El Anatsui and the thematic depth of Professor Chike Aniakor, both of whom he encountered during his stint at Nsukka in Eastern Nigeria. It is the combination of these encounters with masters, and a dogged passion for the art, that defines his present conceptual direction.
Francis has participated in many exhibitions, workshops, and biennales within and outside Nigeria. He was among the Nigerian contingent in the 2008 DAKAR’T Off, and participated in a group exhibition in the Joseph D. Carrier Gallery at Columbus Centre, (Toronto, Canada). Francis was one of the exhibited artists in the 2010 Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain. He participated in the 2010 Interventions Workshop at Greatmore, was workshop facilitators at The Harmattan Workshop Agbarha-Otor and Art is Everywhere in Enugu, Abuja and Zaria, and has recently facilitated an art competition/workshop for the National Art Competition with the African Artists’ Foundation. He also recently concluded an artist workshop at the Triangle Art Centre (New York). Francis teaches mixed media, painting and drawing at the University of Port Harcourt.
Taiye Idahor
Taiye Idahor is inspired by everyday life and the ever changing culture of her space; hence her work challenges and questions the reason for these changes. In using waste objects in her work, she mockingly points a finger directly at the materialistic culture that has eaten deep into the world and now defines the character of her city and home (and even the art she makes). Idahor states: “With these mundane waste objects, I am examining the relationship between women, beauty, tradition, waste materials and modernity as they co-exist in today’s Africa. more specifically Lagos, where the line that differentiates them is gradually (or rapidly in some cases) fading, creating new cultures and new ways of living.”
Her long time interest and desire to recycle may be the main reason she involves these objects in her work, as they are a reflection of how values and culture are being replaced and even lost on account of the industrialized world that we live in today and the high influence of Western society on Africa. Consequently, these supposed wasted objects are transformed and brought into a new light and then presented in another context rather than be rejected for what they had become, questioning the new culture of life we see today in Africa as it searches for the meaning of the African identity, if it does still exist.
Taiye Idahor is a mixed media and installation artist. Idahor graduated from the Yaba College of Technology in 2007 with a concentration in sculpture. Idahor was a finalist in the National Art Competition in 2011. Idahor lives and works in Lagos.
Chike Obeagu
Chike Obeagu is a mixed media artist who uses techniques of photo-collage and painting to comment on the social and political environment in Nigeria today. Obeagu obtained his BA and MFA degrees from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Obeagu is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of FABA (For Artists By Artists) Studios, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting emerging talent in Nigeria. He has won numerous grants and awards and has participated in exhibitions, residencies, and workshops in Nigeria, Senegal, Italy, South Africa, USA, UK, and China. Obeagu won First Place in the National Art Competition in 2011 for his collaboration with artist Uche Uzorka. He is an instructor with the Art is Everywhere Project and presently teaches visual and creative arts at the Federal University Lafia, Nasarawa State. Obeagu lives and works in Abuja.
Richardson Ovbiebo
Richardson Ovbiebo is a sculptor and installation artist whose work reflects the tension between the public and private in Nigerian society, incorporating such diverse elements as doors, locks, wheels, mirrors, shoes, and mannequins. Ovbiebo’s work concentrates on the social dynamics or constructs that emerge from his environment and the roles individuals play as mirrors of their environment. He describes his practice as an investigation into how people’s actions and inactions seem to be a result of a systemic construct. Ovbiebo graduated from the Yaba College of Technology with a major in sculpture. Ovbiebo won the Fashion Designer’s Association of Nigeria Award for Best Design Inspired by Fashion, and he was nominated for Nigeria’s Future Award in 2010. Ovbiebo lives and works in Lagos.
Demola Ogunajo
Demola Ogunajo was born in 1973 in Ibadan. He graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University in 1994 with a degree in Fine Arts. Ogunajo’s practice incorporates painting techniques, referencing a pop-art aesthetic and a graphic design sensibility. Ogunajo works and lives in Lagos.
Alafuro Sikoki
The Modern Evolution Suit (ModEv) is a critical assessment of the multiple roles assumed by many women in corporate society. As today’s women climb the corporate ladder and contribute to the household pocket, the “second shift” continues as they return home to assume the roles of primary care-giver to their children, the cook and the wife.
ModEv explores this condition through the extrusion of the corporate suit. It shows the various functions that are hidden from plain sight as the ‘corporate woman’ navigates the combative cultural and socio-economic playing field in everyday life.
Alafuro Sikoki is an artist and an industrial designer whose works explore the dynamics between the object, user, and the environment. Sikoki graduated from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, in 2006 with a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design. She also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Authoring and Design from Coventry University, UK (2003). Sikoki won Second Prize at the 2012 National Art Competition for her project entitled Cog, which explores television consumption and media saturation in Nigeria today. Sikoki lives and works in Bayelsa and Lagos States.
Obinna Makata
In Obinna Makata’s mixed media collages, diverse visual elements such as ink drawing and cut fabric are used to form a combination of ambiguous bodies and intricately designed patterns. If Obinna Makata’s collages could be prematurely and stereotypically classified as “African” art, with their geographically specific patterns, colours and elongated figures so common in what Western art institutions not so long ago termed “Primitive” art, they are unabashedly conscious of their designation as such. Makata’s collages ambivalently force such signification to the forefront of the discourse of contemporary art in Africa and use the preconceptions of “African” art as a driving conceptual framework. Makata describes his collages as “broken pieces of African culture”, a response to the omnipresence of foreign influence that continues to threaten traditional value systems and artistic processes that are unique to the Continent. For Makata, his work is not about a specifically “Nigerian” experience or a personal experience as such. It is about referencing “Africanicity” as a visual metaphor.
Makata graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 2007, where he majored in sculpture. Makata is also the Founder and Creative Director of Mma-Nka Studio. Makata has participated actively in over fifteen group shows since 2003. His first solo exhibition, entitled Metahistories, opened at the African Artists’ Foundation in September 2012. Makata will begin an artist residency at the African Artists’ Foundation in Lagos in 2013. Makata lives and works in Abuja.
Bob-Nosa Uwagboe
Bob-Nosa Uwagboe is a painter whose work examines the Nigerian social condition. Most recently, Uwagboe has begun to incorporate mixed media practices into his work, including materials such as human hair. Uwagboe investigates the dynamics of government corruption and individual experience in Nigeria, stating: “I use my art as a social and defensive weapon to fight bad leadership.” Uwagbo graduated from the Federal Polytechnic Auichi in Edo State in 2004 with a speciality in painting. Uwagbo lives and works in Lagos.
Stephan Areuze Ubaka
Born in 1977 in Lagos, Steven Arueze Ubaka is a sculptor and mixed media artist who approaches discarded industrial parts as a metaphor for cultural rejuvenation. In his Hope series, Ubaka creates three-dimensional sculptural works out of spoons, hinges, springs, bolts, and electronic parts in the shape of a prototype motorcycle. Ubaka studied Fine and Applied Arts at the Federal collage of Education (Akoko, Lagos), where he obtained a Nigerian Certificate of Education in Textile Design and Sculpture. He also studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (Yabatech Campus) for his B. Sc. Ed in Painting. Ubaka lives and works in Lagos.
Uche Uzorka
Entering into an Uche Uzorka artwork is similar to the experience of entering a restricted public space. Throughout Uzorka’s prolific body of work that includes painting, collage, cutting and pasting, charcoal, and ink drawing, the viewer is at once confronted with a dense mass of visual clutter while at the same time directed by the textual fragments that animate boldly from the canvas. Appropriating the signs and symbols of Nigerian street culture, Uzorka encapsulates the psychological energy that defines the city of Lagos. Uzorka’s work suggests an unwillingness to conform to methods of civic control and an ambivalent attitude towards the urban environment.
Uzorka trained in Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, majoring in painting. Uzorka won First Place with Chike Obeagu in the National Art Competition in 2011. Uzorka is completing a year long residency at the African Artists’ Foundation in Lagos and had his first solo exhibition at the Goethe Institut in Lagos in October 2012.
NIGERIA NOW
EMERGING TRENDS OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN NIGERIA
ART AFRICA MIAMI
4-9 DECEMBER 2012
Joseph Eze
Born in 1975 in Nigeria, Joseph Eze is a mixed media artist who incorporates painting, sculpture, and installation techniques. Eze graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2001 with a Second Class Upper Degree in Fine and Applied Art and a concentration in painting. Eze’s work in Nigeria Now incorporates large scale painting with textual fragments in a conceptual approach that examines the boundaries between traditional and contemporary Nigerian culture. Eze has taken part in over ten exhibitions to date and three solo exhibitions, including Inside of Me (Castedown Gallery, Lagos, 2002), What They Did Not Teach Me in Art School (Tribes Art Gallery, Lagos, 2009), and Hyphen (Nike Art Gallery, Lagos, 2011). International exhibitions include the Independence Exhibition (Gallerie Benedicte, Vienna, 2012) and Art Monaco (2012). Eze was also a finalist for the 2012 National Art Competition in Nigeria. Eze lives and works in Lagos.