A-ARTs: From 'Black Figures, Black Masks', Okwuosa generates youthful visual texture

'I Am More Than What You Think I Am' (acrylic on canvas, 121.5 x 96cm, dated 2021-22) by Tobenna Okwuosa.

WHEN Tobenna Okwuosa opens his solo art exhibition titled Black Figures, Black Masks: Likeness and Beyond, on September 21, ending 30, 2024 at Signature Beyond Art Gallery, 107, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, a new period beckons for the artist.

The artist disclosed that the new journey in exploring black figurative paintings spiced with indigenous African masks started in 2016 through 2022.

Okwuosa's Artist Statement

"In this body of work created between 2017 and 2022, I have expanded the portrait series I started in 2016. The paintings have images of bold black youths and traditional African masks. The models are/were students at Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa, Nigeria where I teach. I photographed the students on campus. The images of African masks were taken mainly from my many copies of the African Arts journal. African Arts, founded in 1967, not only has published many images of traditional African art, but also some of the most important articles on portraiture in African art. Scholars and researchers have identified a good number of portrait masks in different styles. Jean Borgatti, an American Africanist scholar, in her essay in Likeness and Beyond: Portraits from Africa and the World, has classified African portraits into three broad and overlapping categories: generalized anthropomorphic portraits, representational portraits, and emblematic portraits. Most traditional African artists did not strive for physiognomic likeness in their portraiture in contrast with most of their Western counterparts. They mainly used stylized and nonrepresentational modes in their portrayal of specific individuals. My figures are rendered in a realistic style which was influenced by my academic training in mimesis.

"The mask I have chosen for each composition bears a degree of likeness or similarity with the figure. The similarities I see in them may be physical or nonphysical, realistic or abstract. Besides masks, the other elements in the compositions include letters from the Roman alphabet, words, Arabic numerals, geometric shapes, symbolic forms, painted postage stamps, and the designs featured on Dutch Wax African prints. These elements represent the influence of Western modernity and other knowledge systems on the African subjects that happened mostly during colonialism, and have continued in the present in very advanced forms. These external influences have radically changed how Africans perceive themselves, hence, causing an identity crisis. A large percentage of African youths today do not have any affinity with their indigenous cultures, and pairing the figures with masks is an act of restoring their lost relationship with their cultural heritage, visually.

"All the figures except the earliest painting – Afropolitan II (2017-18) that has browns – are painted in deep blue and black to emphasize their African identity. In this I have been influenced by Kerry James Marshall, an African-American painter. Although white complexion is still highly favoured by most Africans because of the negative and evil meanings associated with black/dark colours, the dark skin colour of the figures assumes a glorious and divine meaning when associated with the blackish complexion of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead in Hindu theology. The Christian religion that was brought to Africans by Western missionaries has a God that is depicted with a white complexion, while the devil is painted black. The integrated compositional strategy that I have used in this body of work and their layered meanings and references reflect my ideas of portraiture, African identity, and black aesthetics that have developed over time."

Tobenna Okwuosa (b. 1972) is a contemporary Nigerian visual artist, art critic, writer, mystic, and bhakti yogi whose regimented lifestyle includes teetotalism, vegetarianism, and celibacy.

Okwuosa draws inspirations for his art from different sources such as African literature, traditional African art and material culture, and ancient spiritual traditions. Okwuosa holds a BA in Sculpture (First Class Honours) and an MFA in Painting from the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo. He obtained his PhD in Studio Arts from Delta State University, Abraka. Okwuosa is an Associate Professor of Painting in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa, Nigeria. Okwuosa was awarded the first Philip L. Ravenhill Fellowship 2004/05 by the Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; and was an artist-in-residence at the Visual and Performing Arts Department of the Worcester State College, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, in 2005.

His work has been included in major publications on modern and contemporary Nigerian art such as This is Africa (2017), Artists of Nigeria (2012), Contemporary Nigerian Art in Lagos Private Collections: New Trees in an Old Forest (2012), 101 Nigerian Artists: A Celebration of Modern Nigerian Art 2010); and most recently in the book on the art collection of Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, the Obi of Onitsha, titled A King’s Passion: A 21st Century Patron of African Art (2023).

Okwuosa has shown his work in six solo exhibitions in Nigeria and the US, and many group exhibitions at home and abroad.