Projecting Argungu as thematic conquest of Moses Oghagbon

'Locaci 2 -Time' (oil on canvas, 22 X 22 inches, dated 2023) by Moses Oghagbon.

By Tajudeen Sowole

MY first experience of Argungu Fishing Festival, as a writer on cultural appropriation, occurred in 1999 while writing for the now rested, Lagos-based Concord newspapers. The rhythmic movements of sea of fishermen in the foreground of the ancient city's poetic skyline remained in my memory for long whenever I contextualised culture as strong contents in creativity and tourism.

And in June 2013, at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos, my memory of Argungu was refreshed when Moses Oghagbon had his solo exhibition titled Argungu Series-1. Inspired by his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) project tagged 'Tour Nigeria' of 2004, the exhibition was all the artist needed to fuel an arsenal of passion for his beloved Argungu themes. 

The consistency of Oghagbon on his thematic journey connects appreciation and documentation as the two crucial aspects of art. Despite being felt at the tail end of an artist's studio connection with the viewing public, art appreciation and documentation are inextricable streams in the confluence of purposeful creativity. And by extension, Oghagbon's art captures leisure travel within the context of domestic tourism, specifically using the Argungu themes.

As two basic foundational lifelines that energise the creation of art, appreciation and documentation breed visual culture duality; the former is sacrosanct while the latter comes with relativity for some artists. In art appreciation realm – critical or commercial – every artist derives steam to keep their creative energy alive. The magnetic strength of art appreciation knows no boundary even when artists collect their own works under the behavioural of being possessive of what they create. But in documentation, few artists take benefits to keep their works alive in the realm of timelessness. While documentation is a matter of relativity, the appreciation space, naturally, has a birthright for all artists, irrespective of the subjectivity involved in an artist's work.

In the studio career of Oghagbon, there is something for everyone to bite and digest in the basic visual culture duality values of art appreciation and documentation. In fact, the artist's

multilayered perspectives have so much pool from which critics, historians and the general public art enthusiasts can swim. Oghagbon's art has created depths of resources in both the appreciation and documentation realms. More of interest is how his career has demystified written and unwritten rules of critics, within the context of the mentioned duality.

Oghagbon's art and studio career are two subjects for case study in Art and Identity, framed within appreciation and documentation duality. The history of art has enough contents for scholars, art connoisseurs and researchers to learn so much about artists' passions for creating distinct identity. Interestingly, most artists like to eat their cake and have it; crave for identity, but dread being known for a particular kind of art. That delicate reality of artists' signature choices shows that it takes courage, creativity and resilience to be consistent and keep excelling in the choice of a specific identity. Few artists thread such paths for fear of "failure". Oghagbon's choice falls into that delicate, but courageous choice that has bred a success story, mounted on the pedestal of the Argungu identity.

In piercing his brushstrokes through the landscapes of art creation and appreciation, Oghagbon, like most revered modern and contemporary artists, has created strange, but resilient identity. In search of an identity, Oghagbon's brushing traveled about 711km from his Lagos base to Argungu, Kebbi State. Specifically, Oghagbon's journey, early in his career, got hooked on Argungu Fishing Festival, a yearly event that has become iconic on Nigeria and international tourism calendar. 

Within the context of visual documentation of Argungu Festival – the ancient city by extension – Oghagbon's paintings, arguably, have contributed to the appreciation and documentation aspects of the yearly event. With its origin dated to the 1930s, Argungu Festival, no doubt, has been recorded in reports, and mass media in nearly 100 years. But as regards specific and specialised medium in fine art, Oghagbon's paintings have been exceptionally bold on Argungu The artist's choice of Argungu as his central theme is, arguably, one of the most unique and courageous in art history. Argungu has taken Oghagbon's art through the adventure of experimentation, discovery and conquest of buoyant visual culture colonies.

The visual culture conquests have led him in founding Argungu Series and Colours of Uhola, described as "a documentation/representations project with focus on the vast cultural heritage of Argungu and Zuru Emirates of Kebbi State," Northwest of Nigeria. With visuals, in whatever forms, playing key role in contemporary history, the paintings by Oghagbon have contributed, in retrospect and futuristic articulation to the documentation of Argungu and its people.

In his Argungu series, Oghagbon has offered windows into the educational and historical aspects of the festival and its host ancient city. The content of Argungu Series 1, traverses the yearly Argungu Festival of which the town is known for, so explain, the artist's brushstrokes on canvas, 

However, his focus of the debut show, he stressed, “is to change the perception of people; Argungu is not all about men in water alone.” And having bottled his love for the northern landscape and people for almost a decade, Oghagbon chose to celebrate nature and creativity with the traditional institution of the people.

To confirm that his art had a robust relationship with the people, the opening of Argungu Series-1, had the presence of the Emir, Alhaji Samaila Muhammadu Mera (CON) who was represented by Alhaji Abubakar Dan-Mallam (District Head Bui). In fact, the Government of Kebbi State was also represented by Mr Abel Akinosi, the Chief Consultant at Argungu Fishing Festival. 

For whatever reasons, perhaps, of exhibitions venues outside Lagos, I missed Argungu series 2-6 and 8. In the seventh edition of the Argungu series, the artist displayed that it took sheer boldness to keep painting and showing a single thematic series. In fact, Oghagbon's Argungu Series were defiant in an environment such as Nigeria's art space. In this part of the world, a section of the country's art critics would odiously derogate Oghagbon as belonging to 'repetitive theme-artists.'

 Beyond the emotion germinated from the seeds of repugnant art critics, the reality has shown that it takes strong intellectuality for an artist to self-encircle his theme within a confinement, yet, remains obstinate for as long as he wants. Either in photography, TV, Radio and visual arts documentation, it could be argued that no geographical part of Nigeria has been focused for such a period as seen in Oghagbon's paintings of cultural heritage of the Argungu Emirate.

As the seventh Argungu Series was dedicated to the celebration of the 70th birthday of Kolade Oshinowo, in 2018, it generated some kind of chemistry that existed between two generation of artists. In the exhibition, which opened on February 17, 2018 at Terra Culture, Victoria Island Lagos, Oghagbon continued his lavishness of strokes from the depth of palette, stripped of colour prejudice.

Oshinowo, a former art teacher, prolific painter and link between Nigeria's modernists and contemporary artists, taught Oghagbon at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.  He was a HND student under the tutelage of Oshinowo in 2003. The similarity between Oshinowo and Oghagbon is consistency in progression of which the two artists, to a large extent, have not succumbed to the jaws of contemporaneity. It is of note that contemporary art has been wrongly perceived or misconstrued - by some vocal minorities - as Avant-garde, in Nigeria. And the tragic effect of such misplacement has swallowed quite a number of promising young artists' identity into the belly of confusion. But Oghagbon remained on the track of focused-contemporary journey towards masterly destination.

In representing activities of Argungu in paintings, Oghagbon always make the best of the natural dramatic scenery of Kebbi by allowing the beauty of the skyline embrace more headroom space on his canvas. Also, an artist whose strength resonates in the application of lighting to create illusory dimensional picturesque was alive in Oghagbon's palette.

Among the paintings on exhibit for Argungu series 7 was Divine Return (2013), a long shot capturing of ecstatic youths running towards a destination of success. More interesting is the capturing of the figures on motion, perfectly represented by the artist's strokes of lines in depth, under the feet of the runners.  Still on the artist's skill in generating theatrical scene by using the Siamese of shade and light, a heavy human traffic scene titled Homewards (2014) asserts his ability in using palette knife or brush strokes to separate colours in texture similar to digital imagery reproduction. Oghagbon's mastery of light and shade continues to blossom in Meeting 3, where each competes for concentration of space. 

Who are the people of Argungu? In figural portraiture such as Reflecting Series as well as Study, the artist  captures people across the elites and less privileged class. And like in most society of African settings, the Argungu people, so suggests Oghagbon's figural depiction, could also be identified by native fashion statements.

And as the Argungu Series-7 was a tribute to the prolific master, Oshinowo, Oghagbon expanded the scope of subjects for his landscape painting passion. With the exhibition, Oghagbon recorded another historic moment; being counted in visual documentation of iconic Oshinowo.

And came Argungu 9, which opened on October 15, 2023 at National Museum Onikan Lagos. For Argungu 9, Oghagbon generated fluidity that complemented the mobility of the human subjects and sceneries. As human perception in assimilating imageries keeps changing – surrendering to technological advancement in pop culture – visual artists, over several generations, have remained defiant. But in that obstinacy, fine art keeps its traditional texture while bringing hybridised perception to encircle the core value of art appreciation from straying into the influence of digital incursion. This much of dynamism in creating timeless art oozes in Oghagbon's paintings as his palette knife and brushing appear to be in hybrid of creative textures, with coalescence of dramatic fluidity.

The Argungu 9 had him showed 31 paintings, among which were two oil on canvas, five watercolour on paper, three mixed media and one charcoal on paper. Oghagbon's Argungu 9 exhibition asserted the importance of fine art in connecting tourism, creativity with documentation of events and appreciation of history. For example, everyone who had experienced Argungu Festival or the city has some memories to share, of which can be retrieved through pictorial recovery. 

Between bold application and soft touch of colours, art appreciation gets its diversity. For Argungu 9, there were more than rich enough options for either side of the textures and shades of choices. While one of such paintings titled 'Mystery' challenged one's judgement with its captivating capturing of the skyline, the others such as 'Homeward' series and 'Mission' series tasked viewers' sense of imagination on the realm of infinite depth. 

The richness of Argungu's cultural heritage, according to Oghagbon's works, can't be completed in appreciation and documentation without the dramatic human elements. Such theatrics in colours, the artist depicts in a piece titled 'Gurmi' series, among others. And in other paintings such as 'We Move' and 'Together We Can', the artist symbolises rhythmic pseudo-silhouette in controlled mass movement of human figures.

Oghagbon's Argungu paintings play a crucial role in reconnecting memories, just as the artist's works on the festival stimulate interest of potential visitors to the host, Kebbi State.

 -Edited from two published reviews titled 'Argungu Tribute To Oshinowo, Teachers of Masters' and 'Oghagbon's colonies of visual culture duality, 2018, 2023 respectively. - 

-Tajudeen Sowole is a Lagos-based writer, Media Content Consultant and Art Advisor.