Simeon Mpamugoh
For Olaniyi Sunday Olaniran, 2015 was tipping for his career as a visual artist. It was the year his art witnessed meteoric rise in terms of exhibitions and competitions entered and ensuing plaudits. The artist’s pallet knife is cutting something deep this time around.
It is his second solo exhibition at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos. His first solo show was in Brazil in 2015. In the Lagos exhibition, 50 works would be up for art viewers, collectors, and the community in the one-week exhibition that took time to plan. It kicks off March 30.
The multimedia artist from Oshogbo, Osun State, paints and sculpts. He uses aluminum foil for his works, and specialises in making use of beads to create works of paintings. He said, “Bead is my favourites medium. I love to explore, using bead basically to create portraiture and some abstract works. I started using beads as a medium in 2017, which is when I developed the skills. It is an innovation I started
when my career was at an early stage. I was using biscuit wrappers then for paintings, and creating works of art while in secondary school.
“I also use scraps from my environment to create, as well as other materials, because I couldn’t afford the extra art material. I have to use those things I found in my environment instead of staying idle, and complaining, without doing anything,” he said.
The multi award winning artist, whose works are satiated of wisecracks, revealed in a chat with this reporter the theme and hypothesis of his exhibition, “The exhibition is titled Sagacity. It is a profound wisdom; sagacious and embedded in rich Yoruba proverbs and legends, which lies at the heart of the exhibition. It teaches morals and
values in ancient African history, which are the guiding forces in my works, and they are relevant in contemporary times.
“In this exhibition, I will be showing not less than 50 pieces of artworks ranging from painting, wood carving, aluminum foil, and beads. Two months ago, I was able to explore using beads to create sculptural pieces. I graduated from two-dimensional: using beads as a medium, to three-dimensional forms of art. Today, I have what is called bead sculpture, which is part of this exhibition.”
The artist, who equally crafts in wood and foil intrinsic African titled sculpture and textile designs inspired by his African heritage, opined that the solo exhibition had been mulled since 2015, but it couldn’t happen due to lack of sponsors and situation of things around him. But he kept pushing; without giving up hence he was able to produce such number of works for the exhibition.
“The exhibition is not happening with half-backed works but art pieces that took time to create. They are selected pieces from 2015 to date,” he remarked. He said further his works were used to interrogate social issues such as moral, character, value and respect for others.
“They are deep, beautiful and highly aesthetic. They also create a kind of drama, in the decorative, giving my works both depth and beauty, as I express my own unique voices as a contemporary African artist. And they are relevant to the contemporary world,” he added.
Olaniran, who is an advocate of culture and personal history, said that his works were not about creating beautification, but also dealing with forms and context, “The form is how it looks like while the context is the message behind it. My aim is to see my work touch the emotions of many people especially with beads, which is one of the rare mediums. I want it to communicate virtues of patience to the viewer because it took a lot of patience to produce them.
“One of my pieces of beads medium, which is 6ft by 4ft in dimension, took me six months to complete. It teaches a lot of patience and perseverance, and that has really helped me as a young Nigerian artist, in building the spirit of tenacity, and standing without giving up. You would notice that a lot of young people nowadays want to cut corners; they want to make quick money without working for it.
“My work portrays reward for hard work. With patience, one can actually get to one’s destination. So, my works are laden with a lot of messages to young artists, and it is derive from my experience and gifts.”
Art, he said, was therapeutic to his soul, while his influence was vastly from nature, because, no matter what an artist wanted to do, nature had it first. Speaking about his past records in art, and the coming exhibition, he said, “I’ve taken part in several group exhibitions and competitions. I participated in one of the prestigious competitions organised by Life in My City Art Festival (LIMCAF), and emerged one of the top ten winners, though I was adjudged the best entry from Ibadan zone.
“In 2015, I also took part in Spanish art exhibition in Abuja. I entered with Idealism and Fantasy. I was equally among the top artists of the competition. My first solo exhibition was in 2015 in Brazil. I also lectured students in the second largest University in Brazil, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), on African art and Culture. I took the students to see what I have been able to produce and how African art had influenced the Western art.”
The exhibition holds on Saturday at National Museum, at 2 pm, followed by reception at 4 pm. It will be graced by renowned artists like Jelili Atiku, who is the guest speaker. He will be speaking on “Importance of Art to the Society.” Said the artist, “It is aimed at reorienting artist and society.”
Also expected is one of the retired principal lecturers from The Polytechnic Ibadan, Dr Ellis Oyekola, who popularised the “neo-Oyekolaforms”, which is based on expressing African social-cultural philosophical themes in unique styles. On the bill also is the second guest speaker, Chief Nike Okundaye, owner of Nike Gallery, Nigeria’s foremost textile art emporium.
The curator of the exhibition is Johanan Herson, a Montreal, Canadian-born artist, based in Israel. He has this feeling about the exhibiting artist and the artworks he parades, “The works are impressive and well executed. Olaniran has explored his cultural history through the body of works in a variety of techniques and material –a tribute to his art history and story. The exhibition is a spectacular showcase of this talented emerging artist. The quality of his craft and the inherent ‘Sagacity’. of his works is both meaningful and highly aesthetics.
“To move forward, one must acknowledge where one comes from. That is the theme into the future. Perhaps the beaded portrait will be the examples of the future and contemporary style. The setting up of the exhibition should take the linearly movement; coming from the past, and moving towards the here and now,” Herson said. The exhibition closes on April 5, 2019.