Printmaking and Cultural Imagination in Contemporary Nigerian Art

ABSTRACT

In a vibrant society, people tend to promote their cultural identities while at the same time spontaneous towards adaptation of other cultures. This study critically examines purposively selected works of printmaking artists that reflect the dynamism of culture in contemporary Nigerian art. The study relies on field investigation which includes visual media sources, as well as interviews with the selected printmaking artists. Data were also collected from catalogues of art exhibitions, textbooks, journal articles, as well as Internet sources. Data analysed through the descriptive approach were used to contextualise and provide more information on the printmakers and how their works intersect culture. The results of this study reveal a fusion and a continuum of contemporary with traditional African culture in which several strands of indigenous, international and modernistic elements are rearranged into pictorial composition in the works of the printmaking artists.

KEYWORDS:

• Printmaking
• culture
• cultural imagination
• Nigerian art
• Bruce Onobrakpeya

Acknowledgements

This article is a product of my research work as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof Ruth Simbao, the SARChI Chair, Geopolitics and, the Arts of Africa, Department of Fine Arts, Rhodes University, South Africa. The initial draft was presented at the PROSPA publishing workshop organized by the Art of Africa and the Global South, Department of Fine Arts, Rhodes University, in conjunction with the Margaret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University, Uganda, in 2017. The article also benefitted from the Academic Journal Writing Workshop anchored by Dr. Sherran Clarence, Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa in 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Edward B. Tylor is renowned for giving one of the first complete definitions of culture, in his book Primitive Culture (1871), reprinted in 1958.

2 The government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1988 inaugurated the National Cultural Policy with the aim of promoting Nigerian cultural heritage by identifying, maintaining and earning revenue through tourism.

3 Batulukisi Niangi (2000) argues that the earliest European travelers and explorers were greatly amazed by diversified creativity of African hairstyles; while the coiffures on artworks also inspire admirations as well as questions about their nature, use, and functions. According to Sieber (2000, 15) hairstyle has served to identify ethnic origin, gender, phase of the life, status, as well as personal taste.

4 Chinua Achebe’s first book, Things Fall Apart (1958) earned him international repute. The setting of the novel dwells on the culture of the people of Eastern Nigeria under British colonial rule in the late 1800s. According to London Sunday Times, Achebe ranks among the ‘1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century’, this is in recognition of his immense contributions to African literature, and the world literature at large.

5 Wole Soyinka investigates the conflict between modernity and tradition within the Nigerian context as he reflects on the western influences on African culture in the play The Lion and the Jewel (1962).

6 Ijisakin (2016) identifies a total number of two hundred and twenty (220) printmaking artists in contemporary Nigerian art, and classified them into three: the pioneers, the academic trained, and the workshop trained artists.

7 Ori-Olokun Art Workshop was inaugurated in February 1969 and flourished till 1972 when Wangboje left for Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. See Crowder (1970) for more details on Ori-Olokun Art Workshop.

8 The term “Collacan” is coined from two words- Colla from Collage, and Can from Canvass. It is a printmaking technique in which the matrix is made of collage and printed on canvass.

9 See Buraimoh (2000) for biographical details on Jimoh Buraimoh.

10 Rossem demonstrated some printmaking techniques in Mbari-Mbayo art workshop at Osogbo in 1963 (Personal Communication with Bruce Onobrakpeya, 2013).

11 Ijisakin (2012) explores the import of African culture in the works of Jimoh Burainmoh.

12 Personal Communication with Segun Adeku, February 12, 2016.

13 See Folarin (1993) for further examination of Yemoja and other maternal goddesses in Yoruba art.

14 See Ajíbádé (2005) for more details on Osun.

15 Probst (2011) investigates the Osun Osogbo, the international annual festival, and the nexus of art and religion in the changing world of Osogbo, as well as its prominence in the international landscape.

16 Onaism is an art movement that derives inspiration from the Yoruba word “Ona” which connotes ornamentation. Ona has been used to describe all forms of decorations, patterns, embellishment, or designs found on Yoruba traditional sculpture, textiles, pottery, and other art forms. Ona could be seen on carved wooden doors, Opo (house posts), Opon ifa (Ifa Divination tray), Aso Oke (woven fabrics), and adire (tied and dyed) fabrics. The words “Onise-ona”, or, “Onisona” refer to artists who work with patterns and embellishment. Names such as Onawumi (I am impressed with patterns), or Olonade (the one who embellishes with patterns has arrived), identify people with family lineage of Ona artistry. The late renowned wood carver, Lamidi Olonade Fakeye is a typical example. Onaism as an art movement was founded in 1989 by Moyosore Benjamin Okediji (b.1956), Emmanuel Olakunle Filani (b.1957), Victor Bolaji Campbell (b.1958), Tola Wewe (b.1959), and Babatunde Nasiru (b.1964). The movement aims at forging a national identity by adapting and fusing “Ona” traditions of the past with contemporary realities in their works. Kunle Adeyemi’s culturally and traditionally inspired works perfectly fit into the philosophies of Onaism in which recreation and usage of traditional Yoruba patterns, cultural and symbolic images such as Ooya (comb) found their ways into his contemporary works of art.