A-ARTs: Connecting contemporary, future art energies with Ini Brown's brushstrokes

By Tajudeen Sowole

'Tender Bond' (acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36inches) by Ini Brown.

ACTIVELY or passively appreciating art comes with the beauty of continuous knowledge about artists and the trajectory of the region of practice.

The passion of seeking or acquiring knowledge about artists and their art are components in creative investment – commercial or critical – particularly across generations and periods. In fact, without art history, art in itself, as a discipline and profession, would have been framed as artisan practice. The major difference between artists captured in formal sector of the creative economy and roadside artisans is the documentation of practice, traditionally enshrined in the former.

It's not an exaggeration to say that art history is the energy that drives art collecting and other forms of appreciating art. However, everyone must not be art historian to appreciate or collect art. From both the Ivory Tower and the mainstream town experience, there are enough windows to acquire knowledge about art and artists. Regular art exhibitions, auctions, large scale art events such as festivals, fairs, among others are windows to keep expanding knowledge about artists. And when a tested artist, particularly of transit-generation like Ini Brown is having his solo art exhibition, the window through which to recall and expand the country's art history becomes a treasure for art lovers, in general.

For rich and robust art history of a given region or country, some generation of artists – modern, postmodern and contemporary – must have played some resilient parts. In Nigeria's history, the immediate generation of artists after the postmodern era, are perhaps, anong the most important. Ini Brown belongs in that transit-generation.

The pioneer Nigerian modernists such as Aina Onabolu (1882 -1963), Olowe of Ise (c.1873-1938) as well as the second generation like Ben Enwonwu ( 1917-1994), Akinola Lasekan (1916-1972), among others have no doubt been given their deserved spots in the history of Nigerian art. Also, the new energies of postmodern Nigeria has given birth to contemporary gains, making their presence felt, even beyond Africa, onto the diaspora. Currently, the increasing thirst for art from Africa, is coinciding with the transit period of generational shift, for both artists and collectors. The transit period comes with its challenges of creating art appreciation servitude chain, of which time would expose. The antidote remains the same: consciously timeless, both in creating and collecting art.

However, between Nigeria's modernity, postmodern and the 21st century energies, some artists have created resilience such that, even a chain of Amistad wouldn't be strong enough to hold such energies in captivity, particularly on the wrong side of art appreciation. Brown's art belongs in that cadre of visual culture that learnt from Nigerian modernity through postmodern, and continues to celebrate the country's contemporaneity.

Very few artists are as fortunate as the generation of Brown, whose careers started in the 1980/late1980s and early 1990s. His generation of artists came into the Nigerian art space when some of the country's modernists were either still alive or their works visible in the public space. Every country's modern art history is a foundation on which other structural creative trajectory rests. As much as one must acknowledge the emerging energies of new artists and fresh collectors, a vestigial modern and postmodern Nigerian era would never happen. Such extinction never occurred anywhere in any parts of the world as far as centuries of art history have recorded for the benefit of humanity. The older, the resilience of artists in both commercial and critical values would continue to endure.

And being among the transit-generation from post-modern to contemporary period, Brown's art has survived the turbulence of cradling, over the decades. His brushstrokes have endured through the thick and thin of decades of art appreciation, especially in Lagos. Those who knew what it took for artists to survive on full-time studio practice, in the 1990s through the early years of this 21st century, would understand the importance of having a Brown piece on their walls. For new generation art collectors, a Brown on the wall would add class, maturity, and mastery, boosting the needed link between past and present.

There is no doubt that traditions come and go, as every generation of artists, galleries and collectors define their priority, based on subsisting challenges. However, the intersperse of bold innovations in the mix, across periods, provide the resilience that drive every diverse and unique period. Currently, the Nigerian art appreciation space is also transiting from the old, resilient and conservative era of over 50 years into the new energies of 21st century contemporaneity.

Benefiting from the transit era of buoyancy of Nigerian art is not by entitlement of being within a particular age bracket in practice. The rewards, in both commercial and critical appreciations, come from the shades and hues that every artist has invested in the past. For Brown, his career goes beyond the numbers in period of practice, but through daring adventures. For example, it took courage to kept to a particular medium, in this case the watercolour, that most artists would hardly use. For over three decades or more, Brown's mastery of watercolour has been institutionalised.

And to prove that his mastery of painting is not restricted to watercolour, Brown has shown quite a number of great pieces in the non-paper or watercolour textures. His vibrancy across painting medium is also bold in his current exhibition, Africa's Splendour, asserting the artist's resplendence in visual culture, particularly with acrylics on canvas pieces.

With his 'Africa's Splendour', Brown makes history as the first artist to exhibit at the rebranded space, Artlab Gallery. Between 2017 and currently, the space, formerly known as The Content, has increased art appreciation awareness within Ikeja and other parts of the Mainland. As a gallery, ArtLab, according to reports, has been doing much more beyond exhibiting artists, asserting its role in the area of boosting the link between artists and collectors. Whoever needs to know more about an artist's history or pedigree, art galleries are the right places to provide such guides. ArtLab Gallery, though with young history of existence, is fast building its art compendium to enhance creative enterprise.

For Brown's exhibition, Africa's Splendour, ArtLab Gallery presents another window to see the mastery of an artist whose odyssey has added to the robust art history of Nigeria. Every shade and hue of Brown's brushstrokes is worth the provenance that connects contemporary and future art energies.

Enjoy your visit to ArtLab.

-Tajudeen Sowole, a Lagos-based media professional and Art Advisor wrote the review for the catalogue of 'Africa's Splendour.'

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