Simeon Mpamugoh
They have vowed to run art shows that will linger for limitless time. And as friends and professional colleagues, not even vastly differing views could break the bond.
Agbezin Bamidele George is a painter while Luke Osaro is a sculptor. The duo are staging a joint exhibition that strengthens their bond at Alexis Galleries, 282, Akin Olugbade Street, off Idowu Martins, Victoria Island, Lagos. The exhibition, which has “Treads of Infinity” as its theme, kicks off Saturday March 14, 2020. It is made possible by the consortium of Pepsi, Tiger, Indomie, Mikano, Delta Airlines, Turkish Airline, UPS and Art Café.
In a press preview, the curator and founder of Alexis Galleries, Patty Chidiac Mastrogiannis, restated her commitment to the promotion of visual art. She added that art without documentation was incomplete saying that media generally was critical in the record of happenings within the art space.
Represented at the event by a co-curator of the exhibition, Bimpe Owoyemi, she said that the purpose of any art curatorial was to pass a message. She said, “Agbezin Bamidele George is a contemporary artist. He is a painter who uses his works to address every day happenings. His works are resolutely stylized, thus maintaining a curious balance amid gestured energies. The artist’s study of the quilt art has enhanced the way he manipulates relationship between colours, pattern, design and form on rigorously textured canvass.”
She equally pitched Luke Osaro as one that loves to share his experience of human activities in bronze cast, bonded stone and glass fiber adding that “Treads of Infinity”, no doubt, was the combination of two different ideas aiming at a sole purpose of depicting or reincarnating the divine attributes of human, with different medium of art.
She expressed her passion for the less privileged in the society. She disclosed that, in recent time, her exhibitions had been devoted to contributing to charity, adding that the March 14 exhibition was another leg of a partnership with Women At Risk International Foundation (WARIF), a non-profit organisation against rape and sexual violence incorporated in 2016. Part of proceeds from the exhibition would be donated to the NGO,” she declared.
Explaining the context of his art, George, a Nigerian born Togolese artist, said that he has moved part of his studio to Togo. He remarked, “Last two years, I had a residency programme in a gallery in Togo. That programme helped to broaden my scope, and also introduced me to new ideologies about what I should be doing next in my art career.
“In 2004, we had an African tour. I was the youngest member of Pan African Circle of Artists. The tour took us to about seven countries in the West Coast of Africa. It opened my eyes to new ideas. I was used to painting in a certain way, which everybody has come to know me for. “Agbezin paints on oil and canvass,” was the swansong.
“However, after my experience in Togo, and some quote books I collected 4-5 years ago by impulse buying. When I was ruminating over the different ideas in the book, one particular motif hit me, and I fell in love with it. Today, it is present in my works. It is called “Word and Opposite.” Since then, I have been incorporating it into different ideas.
On his view about the theme, George said, “Osaro and I have been friends for a long time. We belong to the same group called Art Zone for over 15 years. Arthur Arinze runs Art Zone. He thought that there abound so many good young artists but no platform for them to meet, work together and exhibit. It came as an opportunity for most of us then who met and began to work together. We’ve had couple of shows. So, we met there, and bonded seriously.
“We have been trying to do something together for the past ten years, the opportunity never came but thanks to Alexis Galleries that sorted us out for us to have this show. When the invitation came I wondered how it came about, hence the theme, ‘Treads of Infinity.’ It means something that never ends: our bonding is continuous; the ideas and the way they come. Our friendship is continuous because we are not doing anything else except art,” he said.
One of the works of Osaro is entitled Adenike. It is a bronze cast life image of a lady that loves covering and having her head tied to the forehead. “I think she is comfortable with it, because it became her trade mark,” he added.