By Tajudeen
Sowole
Recall that the artists participated at
the third Lagos Black Heritage Festival’s art competition section in 2010. The competition LBHF
Painting Competition themed Lagos, the City of A Thousand Masks, which was a franchise from Florence, Italy’s
yearly event, Caterina De’ Medici
Painting Awards, debuted in Nigeria, courtesy of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole
Soyinka. Won by Abbas Kelani, who got $20,000 prize money, the competition ran
into a hitch a year after, leading to unresolved conflict of interests between
the organisers and Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA), Lagos State chapter.
Exhibiting artists of ‘Our United Heritage’ include Adeoye
Silas, Aimufa Osagie, Akintubode Gbenga, Akinwolore, Bimbo Adenugba, Ekweme
Harriet, Folami, Idowu Abiola, Ighpdalo George, Ike Francis, John Onobrakpeya,
Abbas, Kunle Adeyemi, Munza, Omidiran Gbolade, Oni Stephen, Sola Olamuyiwa and
Uchenna Umeh.
Some of the works for the show
presented during the preview cut across medium of painting and mixed media.
Adeoye’s rendition of ancient form figures in The Repent and Egun 2 as
well as Osagie’s modernist’s stylized portraiture in Family Ties and Passion
stress the diversity of the gathering. Also, in the abstraction Spacerithim by Francis and Adeyemi’s Drummer and Wheels, come contents that seem to justify the gathering.
For Abbas, who won the grand prize at the rested competition,
quite a lot has changed in his art between 2010 and now. This much he continues
in works such as Family Album Series,
Ale and Irole as well as The Printer.
Of recent, Abbas has changed the tone of his canvas, delving into portraiture
of highly archival themes and rendering them in concept of photographs, acrylic
and prints on canvas. Adding to the richness of the gathering are Gbolade’s sea
of mask themes depicted in Market
Transformation and Music Matters.
Rasheed Amodu who writes a piece for the cataloque of the show notes that
the gathering offers the public to assess the artists, individually. He adds
that it “will help the artist to make positive
professional progress.” And not afinality for those who were less prepared for
the exhibition. “Artists with works that are not so great for now can produce
great works and masterpieces in the near future. It is a truism that all
artistic genius were students or apprentice at some point in their career.
Thus, let the show go on, but there must be other shows from the group after
this first step.”
The maiden edition of Caterina de’ Medici
International Painting Competition took place in the city of Florence in year
2002.The coordinator of LBHF Painting Competition, Foluke Michael led three
Nigeria artists to the awards. Ten winners were chosen, and at the end of the
six-day event, one of the Nigerian representatives, Olubunmi Ogundare was among
the top 10.
Also, a Nigerian artist, Sam Ebohon won
the Grand Prize of the Caterina de’ Medici International Painting Competition a
year after.
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