MASSAGES FROM WITHIN

M

STRIPPED STORIES

A BETTER YEAR

IT'S LIKE A RALLY

TRANSIENCE UNEARTHED, SIDE VIEW

TRANSIENCE UNEARTHED, BACK VIEW

TRANSIENCE UNEARTHED

TRANSIENCE UNEARTHED

This artwork, which consists of the torso of a kneeling nude woman with planted flowers growing out from her neck, stands at about 214cm x 110cm x 160cm, and is sculpted with the mixture of sand and clay. From the robust nature of her vigorously molded torso and thighs one can correctly assume that this figure belongs to either a fat woman or a woman in the early stages of pregnancy when weight gain becomes inevitable. The sprouting flower growing from her neck however suggests the latter. The figure has a meditative and playful poise and seems to inhibit a kind of surreal eloquence that evokes the impression that it is subtly and silently interacting with the environment in which it is placed. The natural and deliberately unfinished state of the work further reechoes this fact.
The style of the artwork is reminiscent of the ancient Greek style of sculpting their god of beauty Venus. Nevertheless it is fertility and not beauty that is emphasized here. The figure along the lines of its well thought out and stubbornly executed configuration, the masterful combination of earth and plant, mirrors the union, the bond that exists between our inner selves and our heartbeat, the personality and the attitude that is exhibited as a result of that personality. Furthermore, the host of living plants also informs us of the possibility of new life and the transient passage of time.

sterms

Eku-ite-garri

the little humps of semi-cylindrical clay forms, littered all over every available space in the exhibition ground are replicas of the homemade apparatus used by peasant women to shield and control the fumes drifting off the firewood burning under the pan while frying garri.
The making of the clay humps, which is known in the igbo language as eku-ite garri, is considered a masculine task usually carried out by the boy(s) in the household, while the frying of the garri itself is done mainly by the mothers of the house due to the certain degree of expertise, patience and experience required its execution. The entire process of local garri production identifies one of the rare occasions in rural Nigerian setting where the bond between mothers and their sons are lauded and encouraged by the society, since it is the usual norm that mothers stay with their daughters in the kitchen while fathers go to the farm, fish or hunt with their sons. With the radical influx of technological development in the society and its resultant cultural interchange, the chore of processing garri is now becoming obsolete and thus leading to the slow eradication of one of the few stimuli that encourages and deepens that mother-son relationship. Juvenile delinquency in the society is now on the up rise, what with the tirade of negative influences from the vulgar associations with street gangs and most private media.

LYING IN STATE

Lying in state is one of the artists remarkable installments which has a satirical theme with a comic twist. the installmant is made uo of mostly found objects mostly cigarette packets arranged in a structure that resembles a coffin. The gigantic stick of cigarette, which also represents a wrapped up dead body, is simply a bunch of dried grass wrapped up in a long cylinderical white paper. Its dimensions are 280cm x 20cm x 40cm .
The story behind the inspiration of the artwork is as hilarious as its theme. The artist, during a burial of an uncle who died as a result of a cardiac problem caused by excessive cigarette smoking , recalled an aunt who at the scene of the burial (that is when the body was lying in state and the visitors and family where observing it and paying their respects) was said to have exclaimed that it wasn't a human body that was lying there but "cigar", her own way of saying cigarette. The artwork illustrates and emphasises the health hazard caused by one of the modern day symbol of class and style, which is cigarettes.

ANTZ

HEADS II ...

The original ingredients of this assemblage are tiny busts of casted human heads, all of variable proportions of about 90 x 30cm in dimension, linked together by a concealed wire threads and a vertical aperture. The artwork is rested upon a cylindrical metallic pedestal. The overall structure has a crudely oblong shape.
On a much closer introspection one would notice that the eyes of the respective sculpted heads are closed and each seem to have a personality of its own and are clustered in a manner such that the observer is given the impression that they are heads breaking out of a crowd, listening to something or someone with their eyes shut. Through this approach the artist has tactfully injected doses of surrealism in its thematic content, so that it ceases from being a mere arrangement of casted human heads to becoming a creative assemblage with a strong universal philosophical content.
The head as a figure of speech is a synecdoche associated with power and authority, which defines a hierarchical path tat is based on the nature and importance of the responsibility assigned to it. And as Winston Churchill put it, with much power comes responsibility, one can naturally postulate that the heads with the greatest responsibility are situated at the top and those with the least stay below. The fact that the heads are fastened together symbolises unity, which is among the basic constituents of any stable government or organization

HEADS II ...

The original ingredients of this assemblage are tiny busts of casted human heads, all of variable proportions of about 90 x 30cm in dimension, linked together by a concealed wire threads and a vertical aperture. The artwork is rested upon a cylindrical metallic pedestal. The overall structure has a crudely oblong shape.
On a much closer introspection one would notice that the eyes of the respective sculpted heads are closed and each seem to have a personality of its own and are clustered in a manner such that the observer is given the impression that they are heads breaking out of a crowd, listening to something or someone with their eyes shut. Through this approach the artist has tactfully injected doses of surrealism in its thematic content, so that it ceases from being a mere arrangement of casted human heads to becoming a creative assemblage with a strong universal philosophical content.
The head as a figure of speech is a synecdoche associated with power anmd authority, which defines a hierarchical path tat is based on the nature and importance of the responsibility assigned to it. And as Winston Churchill put it, with much power comes responsibility, one can naturally postulate that the heads with the greatest responsibility are situated at the top and those with the least stay below. The fact that the heads are fastened together symbioses unity, which is among the basic constituents of any stable government or organization

HEADS I and...

KEYS

The entire framework of the artwork keys bears semblance to the previous work, padlock, in terms of execution , the main difference being that the clay structure is representing a bunch of keys attached to a loop that is meant to be its holder. The whole artwork is covered entirely with clay, with variable dimensions (150cm x 40cm x 30cm). The artist constructed it in way that its implied size is not jeopardized by using meshed wrought iron to allow for lightness and freedom..
Keys mirror the corrupt, instable and unpredictable state of the Nigerian social, moralistic ethos in its theme. Keys are for unlocking doors but every door has a particular key designed for it, which has been built to unlock it. It is obvious that the key intended for the other art work, ‘padlock’ cannot unlock it in reality because its basic proportion is too large fit into its lock. Still the very fact that it is placed next to it posits a salient question that hinges on the owners motives. Relatively, when we observe the corrupt nature of our political elections and the undemocratic methods they use in winning these elections, the corrupt , selfish intentions behind the rule of these leaders will soon become evident . In the same vein, students who bribe and engage in examination malpractices can be expected to initiate and cultivate that habit in every other thing they partake in. Hence, in this case the means reveals the end.

DIALOGUE

The forms within this sculpture consist of a pair of bicycle handle bars, a refrigerator compressor and a mortar shell with dimensions (47cm x 60cm) not true to their realistic scales as a whole unit relatively. The basic proportions have been intentionally distorted to effect a visual balance. In fact the entire assemblage has been skillfully manipulated to achieve this balance, an asymmetric one, as can be observed in the similarity between each and the technique used in creating them. Also each of the component sculptures has been subtly and strategically arranged in a way that they lean on themselves for support, thus resulting in a feasible stable form.
A coarse surface texture has been deliberately created by the atrtist thereby simulating subdued visual vibrations that conjure the subjective sentiment of isolation, of attachment, and effecting that dynamic interactive relationship between mass and space(a close observation however would reveal that mass rather than space is the essential feature in its formal structure), bringing these familiar forms in resonance with the intrinsic theme of the artwork, which is dialogue.

MBIAKOTA (TOGETHERNESS)

Each of the crude, irregularly shaped tablets of clay cast in this assemblage display a certain kind of uniqueness and peculiarity. They all carry some found objects that are randomly arranged within their roughly textured surfaces, and no two tablets are exactly alike, whether in form of the arrangements of the items or their respective shapes. Yet when assembled together their uniformity becomes very obvious and defines their collective wholeness as a singular work of art. the entire assemblage measure at about 170cm x 170cm x 10cm in variable dimensions.

The artwork, Mbiakota, which is the Igbo translation for togetherness, exudes a type of optimism that eradicates every speculation of discrimination be it racial, religious, ethic, regional or tribal, and indirectly illuminates the fact that they are all psychological, transient and myopic ways of defining ourselves. Here the artist suggests that if we only look deeper we’ll find that common trait that unites us and reveals our oneness. The obvious differences are only peculiar characteristics that defines and celebrates our uniqueness rather than isolating them in any prejudicial ethos.

PADLOCK

Padlock describes one of the artist's unique style of using clay in a manner that crudely and shrewdly reechoes, in the same breath, the nuances and consciousnesses of the pop art and non studio art culture in the post modern school of thought. The object's originality and characteristics is not compromised, and one is dramatically drawn to participate in their transformation from the simple forms we come across from day to day to rich creative expression of experiences we can all relate to. It consists of a large meshed aperture replica of a locked padlock of about 164cm in height and 103cm in width which is totally covered with pinches of stone ware clay from the top to the bottom.

The standard of the Nigerian economy is passing through a phase where the means of livelihood is becoming harder day by day and crime rates are on a larger scale .The artwork, padlock reflects the poor nature of our security, which is now a major cause for concern, since everyone seems to be adopting the maintenance culture, clinging tightly to the little they have in the face of the high cost of procuring newer once. Padlock stands as a symbol, a metaphor silently voicing out the dilemma of the poor man's only means of protecting and sustaining his meagre possessions.

DIVIDEND OF DEMOCRACY

This art work consists of of a gigantic bowl and a spoon with dimensions of about 250cm x 29cm x 150cm,both wire meshed apertures plastered all over with globs of clay.

Here the artist attempts to express a personal experience a lot of people can relate to;the frustration and gross disappointment he usually feels when after coming back to the house after a very busy day exhausted and hungry he enters the kitchen of the house where he resides only to find all the dishes all gleaming emptily, especially when he expects that those in his household who are responsible for preparing his meals to have taken care of that.Once again the artist uses simple visual representations and proportional distortion in this artwork as a visual metaphor to illustrate the poignant political state of Nigeria as a democratic republic and the shoddy impact the insensitive policies of her governing bodies has on her less privileged citizens, contrary to the expectations they have of them.

SPOON

Spoon: this artwork, which has been titled spoon deftly celebrates the school of thought of the pop art culture, and adheres to its peculiar visual laws of three dimensional pictorial representations. It is about 300cm x 60cm x 29cm in dimension. The length of its tine in relation to its bowl has been subtly distorted proportionally. And basically it is a stoneware piece of sculpture, and the artist’s unique style of plastering clay on a wire meshed aperture is also obvious and its rough texture cannot be overlooked.
The length of the tine as noted earlier has been distorted intentionally as a satirical allusion to the proverb which states that those that dine with the devil use longer spoons. The artist, in this work is saying, by portraying the cutlery by itself that one should not even think of dining with the devil.

KNOTS

KNOTS: standing at about 60cm x 20cm, the artwork knots consist of a curvilinear wrought iron structure, with its surface plastered all over with whorled pinches of clay. Its writhing form guides ones eyes along the ridge-riddled path of its parched surface, generating visual rhythms that draws you into it, as though indirectly inviting you to subconsciously participate in its unknotting.
The artwork interacts with the space surrounding it, inciting a sense of implied motion with its free flow and jagged metallic swirls.

set of chairs

functional arts for home furnishing...

BRAIN DRAIN

Alozie C. Chibuike. Brain Drain. 2006. Clay.Brain Drain, 170cmx170cmx20cm.

In this work, there is also an scattered assemblage of clay works, that have been pierced and

cut into half.

The clay works actually represent fruits of avacado pears that have been have been hollowed and split into half. It is an art work that metaphorically potrays the 'brain drain' syndrome that has been haunting the country for a long time now, where a large number of Nigerian citizens travel out of the country to become citizens of foreign countries. Through this artwork, the artist tries to express the fact that it is not just individuals that leave the country for the so called 'greener pastures but on the general scale the country is being drained of thousands upon thousands of human resources who individually have the potential to transform the country into the green pastures they seek, our lame political and socio-economical strides towards development notwithstanding.

BOTTLES

Alozie C. Onyirioha. Bottles. 2006. Clay on board. 244cm x 9cm.

The artwork, bottles is an assemblage of "halved" green ware bottles fastened onto an upright square wooden pedestal. The bottles all seem to be placed in a way that they generally assume the form of a whole bottle.
The artwork alludes to the ancient Chinese adage that states: " a full bottle won't shake, but a half one will". Things don't always seem to be what they appear and just like the overt picture of the bottle portrays a full structure, its individual parts reveal small, empty halves that finally affirm the fact that it is not as stable as it is meant to be. Nigeria is popularly regarded as the Giant of Africa due to our geometric and population size and our natural and human resources, but our political and socio-economic policies and the nature and attitudes of our leaders over the last forty years showcase a pattern that reveals a "halved" and "empty" effigy of the democratic ideal.

Barricade

Alozie .C. Onyirioha. Barricade.2006. Clay(Greenware) , Binding Wire.390cm x 9cm.

By passing a long stretch of binding wire through different sizes of greenware clay slabs, the artist has attempted to use this artwork, Barricade, which is a crude creative imitation of the restricting structures used by most institutions like road safety marshals and dectectives to ward of motorists from accident scene or onlookers from a crime scene, to metaphorically represent a type of fortress or enclosure which saliently announces the existence of something valuable within its precinct, like the number of artworks artworks in his exhibition.

AKPAJA (PUNCHING BAG)

Alozie C. Onyirioha. Punching bags. 2006. installation, clay and wrought iron. 210cmx140cmx34cm.

Three longtitudinal pouches of clay suspended from the horizontal bar of a swing-like wrought iron structure characterises this work of art.

Akpaja, lliterarily translated to mean sandbag or punching bag, is a piece of instalmental sculpture that metaphorically issues out a silent satarical diatribe against the attitude of the Nigerian politicians who , like the boxer that hurls his punches at random on the punching bag, aim their selfish, myopic and shallow policies at the general nigerian populace, nonchallant and oblivious of their resultant effect on the economy.

AKARAKA

Alozie C. Onyirioha. Akaraka. 2006. Clay(Greenware). 244cm x 120cm.

The work Akaraka comprises of several slabs of unbaked clay (greenware) with imprints of a palm depressed into their respective surfaces. the works are installed on a wall in a pattern that assumes the crude semblance of a cross.
Akaraka, which means 'destiny' in the Ibo language, reveals a fresh insight on the peculiar nature and rite of passage of the individual's quest in discovering his or her potentials and purpose. The palm-prints is a type of synechdochal expression that posits the notion that ones inherent gifts or talents gives a clue on the direction of ones destiny. Sometimes we express our respective talents or stumble upon them by way of chance occurences in life, in our attempts at different vocations or in the living out of our various proffessions all in the bid to knowingly or unknowingly search out and fulfill our respective purposes, to walk the varied and unique paths of our destiny.

WHAT'S NEW

TOO MANY THINGS TO TALK ABOUT

THOUGHTS HAVE WINGS

the journey