By
Tajudeen Sowole
In
painter Nyemike Onwuka’s fourth solo art exhibition titled Diary Pages, held at Alexis
Galleries, Victoria Island, Lagos, the dilemma of Africans in sustaining
cultural values was among the leading themes.
More pertinent of the artist’s thoughts in the current
reality, for example in Nigeria, is the issue of aligning sexuality within a
reasonable limit of acceptance as against oddity in the choice of partners.
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Just So I Thought is from Nyemike Onwuka’s Diary Pages
|
From
multiple husband, to underage girl marriage, Onwuka expresses what he discloses
as some of the notes from his dairy, over the last 11 months. In some of the 20
works he showed, the artist collapses his jottings into the body of work. And
perhaps, significantly, at a gallery where he was the first artist shown when
the space opened as Homestores Gallery in 2011.
One of Nigeria's young artists who are
consistent in representational modernism, Onwuka, has however established
himself with a distinct identity by aging his canvas. Within this identity,
every theme of his exhibition attempts to separate the previous outings from a
current show. His Diary Pages is not
different, though he boasts that“I am still consistent with my rustic canvas.”
The
theme of the exhibition is not exactly far from people’s record keeping
attitude, even in the age of smart phones, which even offers a digital diary. A
look into an artist’s diary could be of interest, maybe from a fresh
perspective. “These are my thoughts over the past 11 months,” Onwuka explains.
Of all the choices of sex partners that
people make, the most complex areas of contentious sex partner is a
woman’s multiple male lovers. In one of Onwuka’s work titled Polyandry, the artist argues that such
behaviour is un-African. Like the ongoing issue of same sex partners, it does
appear that Africans have imbibed the habit of tracing“unpopular
sex behaviour”
to the west. One
woman to more than one husband, Onwuka argues, is not African. He notes
that “Polyandry is a trend in the west,” warning that “it’s now creeping into the African environment.”
But
if the line between polyandry and promiscuity is a thin one, it could be very
difficult to trace its origin to the west or any culture outside Africa. It’s as contentious as same
sex. Perhaps with the exception that same sex has been with us in Africa for a
while, but not same sex marriage.
Indeed, Onwuka's Diary Pages may just be similar to that
of every Nigerian who keeps abreast of recent issues of sexuality in the country.
From an alleged plans of the Upper Chamber of the national assembly to
legislate on marriageable age for a girl child, to the recently ascent law
prohibiting same sex marriage, Nigeria is infested with sexuality issues.
While
sympathisers of same sex marriage are voiceless in the deafening applause for
the passage and signing of the law, the issue of what makes a girl underage for
marriage divides Nigerians across religious and ethnic lines. For diverse reasons,
it seems that everyone who contributes to the debate has taken a hardline
position.
And
just when one thought feminism, from Onwuka's perspective, ends on the canvas,
the artist too takes a stand on the underage marriage debate. He expresses his
view in the work titled If Only I Had A
Choice.
In 2011, Onwuka’s Moods was used to
formally opened Homestores Gallery, showing paintings, mixed media and
drawings, that stresses his
identity.
After training at Auchi Polytechnic,
Edo State, Onwuka went for further skills acquisition when he studied Character
Animation at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa in 2008.
Two
of his past shows included Lines and
Forms at Sachs Gallery, Victoria, Lagos, and Elegant Urban Decay at Arc Gallery, London, UK.
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