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Imitations of Nature
Okechukwu Uwaezuoke, 06.20.2009
Eight years after her last solo
exhibition in Lagos, the US-based Nnenna Okore summons the cognoscenti
to another show, which opened yesterday at the Goethe-Institut Lagos.
The landmark exhibition, titled Of Earth Barks and Topography, is a
gust of fresh air to the ideas-challenged local art scene, writes Okechukwu Uwaezuoke
Her inspiration sought her out during her childhood
years at Nsukka. For that, Nnenna Okore had her fascination for the
rural backdrop around the university campus to thank. Fancy the
imageries the rocky, undulating landscape and squat thatched-roofed mud
must have suggested an impressionable childlike mind like hers. “I came
across several stunning traditional art and architectural forms, such
as, roofed shrines characterised by huge mounds of sand under a
thatched structure, and yam barns and fences that traced the borders of
people’s compounds,” she gushed. “I was also drawn to simple sights of
bare-footed children appropriating toys and hunting tools from scrap
objects.”
There were, of course, other compelling views that courted
her sensibilities. The visual euphony of the carefully arranged wares
on the heads of the street hawkers or in the termite-eaten tables of
market women, huge piles of yam tubers and high stacks of grain sacks
could not have been unnoticed. She also found “the recycled cardboard
boxes, newspapers and cement paper bags that served as insulation, bed
padding, gift-wraps, mats, table coverings, and food wrappings within
the market environment… alluring to behold.”
Fast forward to
sometime in 2001. It was two years after her graduation from the
University of Nigeria Nsukka. She was one of those New Energies young
Turks, whose outing at both the Mydrim Gallery and Nimbus Art Centre in
the Ikoyi stunned the Lagos art aficionados. The Lagos audience was
still swooning over the audacity of that artistic stunt when she held
her first solo exhibition that at another Lagos art gallery that year.
Another solo show followed on closely its heels the next year at the
Victoria Island-based Didi Museum. Titled Beyond the Lines, it would be
her last Nigerian outing for many years…
Eight years on and many
exhibitions after, she is making a spectacular comeback to the Lagos
scene with another solo. Titled Of Earth Barks and Topography, it
opened yesterday and runs until July 10 at the Goethe-Institut Lagos
along Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue in Victoria Island. Not unlike the conjurer
with his white rabbit, the North Park University Chicago assistant
professor conjures beauty out of the environmental kaleidoscope. “Her
works employ a mixture of common urban objects such as newspaper, rope
and twigs which remind her of the struggles of impoverished Africans
who by necessity recycle most things,” writes Lanny Silverman, the
curator of exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Centre, in her
exhibition catalogue. “Okore’s work has an uncanny ability to create a
very pleasing harmony from the chaos of urban detritus and natural
elements while maintaining a very personal sense of content.
“In
Nnenna Okore’s hands, the ordinary materials and cast-offs of the
industrial world become transformed into arresting works of beauty. Her
work has us looking at constructed objects with a new eye and with
nature ever-present in the background. By combining natural objects
with human-made materials, and by utilizing [sic] processes that mimic
organic growth and decay, the boundaries are blurred between what is
‘art,’ ‘natural,’ or ‘artificial’.”
Okore’s works summon you into
the Alice-in-Wonderland-like world of intricate weavings of nature.
Forms spring from out of found objects, newspapers, wax, cloth, rope,
clay and sticks. Your curiosity leads you on… The titles whiz past your
consciousness as you from work to work: “Foliage”, “Rebirth”,
“Conjoined”, “Bark I and II”, “Trunk”, “Flora”, “Skin”, “Strings of
Fiber”, “State of Decay I and II”, “Bark and Fiber”, and “Traces
and Memories” among others. Why does the artist mimic nature? “Ms.
Okore’s works hold answers for nobody – they, in the contrary, evoke
questions,” explains Roderik Gross, in his comments.
So come into
her world with the mindset of a child. Savour and absorb the forms and
colours. Follow the delicacy and ingenuity of their patterns. And you
are guaranteed no dull moments. This is because the former El Anatsui
brought-up is about the most entertaining visual artist, whose brief
stopover in the Lagos exhibition circuit left a lasting impression. The
fountain of her inspiration has so far appeared in exhaustible. “I
apply various repetitive and labor[sic]-intensive techniques like
weaving, twisting, sewing, dyeing, waxing and rolling, which were
learned by watching villagers perform everyday tasks,” she explained in
a recent interview. “These processes accentuate colors [sic], textures
and other visceral qualities of my sculptures.”
She is not exactly
weaving straw into gold like the peasant’s daughter-turned-emperor’s
wife in the old fable. Lurking beneath her weavings is that impulsion
towards perfection which brings many elements into a harmonious union.
Her tendency to simulate textiles, tree barks and the ravages of nature
hark back at the efforts of her mentor El Anatsui. Writes Silverman,
“The artist’s attention to detail in the obsessive accretion of pattern
and texture parallels the beauty of nature, and when using such humble
flotsam and jetsam of our industrial world, it also calls attention to
issues of waste, re-use and questions our very notions of beauty in the
world.”
The Goethe-Institut exhibition, a logical sequel to her
previous outings which include a spectacular participation at the 2006
edition of the Dakar Biennale (Dak’art), feature works that scour into
the hitherto ignored natural processes. About the same time, she is
holding a yearlong exhibition titled Trash Menagerie at the Chicago
Cultural Centre (from June 20, 2009 to June 2010). Her bewildering
forms will meanwhile challenge the ideas-challenged local art scene… a
wake-up call to both artists working in the traditional and new media.
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