Evening with the Artists

Posted under News on 17 January, 2011

Guests of The Mojo Gallery joined Curator Annabelle Nwankwo-Mu’azu and artists Pélagie Gbaguidi and Tola Wewe for the preview of 'Ancestral Space - Translated Identities'. Open until end of February 2010, the second exhibition in the 'As It Is!' series features the work Tola Wewe, Pélagie Gbaguidi, K. Ken Adewuyi, Momodou Ceesay and Owusu-Ankomah.

As reported in The National: 'The show seeks to identify those who have played an "Elder" role in the evolution of African art over the past 20 years. Furthering this idea of ancestors, and the transmitting of ideas across generations, a number of works draw on folklore and visual traditions from across the continent. Tola Wewe, described as being to Nigerian art what Chinua Achebe is to Nigerian literature, is emblematic of this idea. He was one of the founding members of the Ona movement in late 1980s Nigerian art: "Ona is a Yoruba word that means 'design,'" says Wewe, an exacting figure in his 50s with a bushy white goatee.'

"If you're from an artistic family in Nigeria, your name will start with Ona. So we started to recognise some correlation between Ona and the idea of ornamentation in Yoruba culture." The group assembled an archive of the many decorative aspects in the Yoruba's visual language. "We looked at facial markings, tattoos, and I was working on my thesis then, which focused on masks found along the Niger Delta. I began photographing the animals found along the Delta; crocodiles, tortoises, and looking at how these evolved into motifs on these masks."

Read the full article on The National