By Tajudeen Sowole
From his last solo art exhibition titled My Experience, Funso
Omojola continues to reflect on his sojourn into the creative business of
visual arts.
With over two decades
of studio practice in Lagos, he now confessed that his joy and passion for art
before his arrival in Lagos in 1987 was far from “colourful”. Art, he said,
“was beautiful in monochrome, but never thought it could be expressed in
colours”.
Though he argued that
thematically, one of the over 40 works for the exhibition, a panel of 25
miniaturised canvases in cubic shapes and embossed images is the titled piece,
another work, The Land is Green seems to explain the concept of Omojola’s
Unseen Expressions better. It’s a decorative portraiture of an unidentified
lady sandwiched by two panels inscribed with flowers. The works, he says,
supports his argument that “my art is not just about me alone”, but getting
people involved”.
On his technique, lines,
he explains, play a great role. For example, in Crossover, acrylic on canvas
the five paneled, he says “create the beauty of my crossing over with a better
day in moonlight shape”.
And what has
the lines got to do with it? “I used the
lines and wave of colour for both the aessthetic and message of movements”.
And comes the sculptural characteristics of his paintings in
Face of Lagos, an acrylic on canvas in relief of five compartmented pieces that
depicts the beauty of Eyo masquerade in Lagos. “It’s my style of arranging panel together create
beauty of mind, so that culture is appreciated and the people of may be able to
relate with the meaning better”.
From the archives comes a
set of large canvas populated with miniatures of legends and popular quotes.
Some of these images include Mahatma Gandhi, Julius Ceaser, Obafemi Awolowo,
Prof Wole Soyinka, Nnamidi Azikiwe and Maclom X.And quite of interesting is
that Omojola’s idea of words on marble cuts across ages and generations. For
example, the artist finds, Tupac Shakur’s ‘For every dark Night, there is a
brighter day’ worth listing among world’s words on marble.
About a decade before
Shakur realized the potency of resilience, Awolowo, according to Omojola’s
assemblage of prints had said: ‘After rain comes sunshine, After Darkness comes
the glorious dawn. There is no sorrow without its allay of joy; there is no joy
without it admixture of sorrow. Behind the ugly terrible mask of misfortune
lies the beautiful sooting countenance of prosperity. So, tear the mask”.
And quite another
interesting print of former Hollywood sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe who argued: ‘I
don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.’
Omojola’s strength in
intellectual and painting content is not exactly in the decorative and
reproduced prints of iconic images, but in semi-abstract impressionism, so
suggests quie a number of works expected to be on display during the
exhibition.
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