BY
TAJUDEEN SOWOLE
IF
excitement and joy of a first solo art show are all an artist needs to make a
strong statement and bold announcement on the scene, Bukky Ojukotola has it all
with Forms In Africa.
As she took visitors round her works inside the Yusuf Grillo
Gallery, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, recently, the confidence exuded by
her innocent canvas, indeed, spotlights her ambition.
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| Courtship by Bukky |
A trained architect but
self-taught artist, Ojukotola is not your regular paint-on-canvas kind. In her
exploration of what she argues to be a stronger unifying force or bond among
Africans, the young artist arrives at Forms
In Africa. And this, she expresses in mixed media.
For the artist, it could not have been anything else, as
mixed media is not an option, but a natural choice. Reason: “It gives me the
leverage to explore my imagination that whirls with all sorts of ideas.”
Every young artist seeks to
evolve an identity, which will grow with time. For Ojukotola, her art lexicon
seems to have taken off already, modestly though, in fragile renditions seen in
works such as Abike and Her Shells, Accessory, Changing Faces, Labalaba,
Pot of Beads and The Mask.
And lucky her, she is coming out at a time
when aesthetics is increasingly becoming relative, and material or medium has
expanded artistic expression outside the traditional draughtsmanship scope.
What exactly is her mode of expression considering
the new challenges offered by the aesthetic demands?
“I weave silk/wool mixed with other
media such as beads, cowries, shells, match sticks, lacquered, glass, plastic
and wood on a canvas,” she enthuses.
AS
naïve as her works appear, they are not exactly devoid of intellectual or
philosophical depth, which visual arts thrive on.
The weaving, particularly of silk with
other materials, Ojukotola explains, “is to celebrate the abundant beauty in
motherland.”
She argues, “no matter the place
of your birth or root, these art forms/materials are parts of our heritage such
as masquerades, calabash, adire.”
According to the artist, “we may
differ in religion, but we are united by culture and tradition.”
To this end, Ojukotola urges
cultural imperialists to open their minds “and let colours, patterns and shapes
re-affirm the belief that indeed we are from a beautiful continent called
Africa.”
REMINISCING
on her formative years in art, she recalls how a painting by Cara Vaggio titled
Taking of Christ (1602) “opened up my
mind to the fact that visual arts is a powerful medium of expression.”
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| Bukky Ojukotola |
She describes expression via art “as a
reflection of different forms of emotion that the mind or heart responds to. An
artist’s mood can be perceived by gazing at his or her work.”
For a new comer, what more could
she have gotten as words of encouragement; the curator of the show, Adeola
Balogun notes that she shares the zeal for survival with several other
up-and-coming artists who “run from pillar to pole in to order raise fund for
the execution of their works and to later face a harder task of securing
exhibition space.”
Balogun says she has been
exploring different materials despite her forms being “playful and ingenuous,
but imbued with apt stylistic expressionism which is peculiar to her.”
Currently working in a Lagos-based firm, Ojukotola
studied Architecture at the Lagos State Polytechnic.
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