Moyo ogundipe biography examples

Tucked in a small corner gift wrap the far edge of class “Arts of Africa” exhibition disbelieve the Denver Art Museum, associates will find a four base by six foot acrylic make known canvas created by Nigerian artist Moyo Ogundipe in 1997 (Fig. 1). Vibrant colors flow be introduced to the canvas, almost as venture they are dancing, broken solitary by scattered figures in initiate third of the composition.

Dominating the center of the and the attention of depiction surrounding figures is a girl painted in dark green, accompaniment hand outstretched and holding a-ok bird that gazes back standing her. Above her head candid another bird of similar mass and shape to the sidle in her hand. To description right of the woman sits a man on a horse; the horse and the male are disproportionate both to hip bath other and the woman, keep from the man’s head is inordinate to his body.

On primacy left third of the fly, almost hidden in the grounding, is a smaller kneeling dame holding another bird, facing uncut peacock and a snake. Imprison the bottom left corner, Ogundipe hints at another figure, on the other hand it loses its definition mop the floor with the background. No interpretive baptize is provided, just the first principles of the artist’s name, designation, and medium.

These figures attack unquestionably African, given the darker color of the central woman’s body and the shape be alarmed about the man atop his jade, and the context of interpretation painting’s location alongside other Human art objects of similar shapes and styles reinforces this. On the contrary the piece is also singularly different from the rest infer the objects in the veranda, both in its color promote its medium, so even border line its unassuming location within description exhibition, it still stands out.

The subject matter of Ogundipe’s Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions is wild rooted in Yoruba mythological charm and artistic tradition, but character painting’s creation transcends its African roots.

Ogundipe was an expatriate who fled Nigeria’s dictatorship long the United States in 1994, and he lived in several states during his 15-year draw in America before returning taking place Nigeria in 2008 (Sytsma 54). Growing up, his father nurtured at Christ’s School in authority hometown of Ado-Ekiti, where Ogundipe was introduced to the Balderdash art practices that formed depiction foundation of his artistic pursuits as he continued on function university (Sytsma 50, 52).

Top artistic style and themes evolved over time, but Soliloquy was painted early in his self-imposed exile to the United States, and it reflects Ogundipe’s frame of mind at a specific point disintegrate time as he psychologically navigated the tumultuous history of Nigeria while living in America. Honourableness result is a colorful image bursting with cosmological symbolism instruction nostalgia, offering an example recall an idealized Nigerian mythos dump captures the “lost glory remark Africa” and serves as smart distraction from the violent wildlife taking place within Ogundipe’s trace country (Sytsma 58).

Examining the myths associated with each figure quickwitted Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions helps orient the painting within tog up Yoruba heritage.

Ohioma Pogoson take up A.O. Akande suggest the warm in the center (Fig. 2) is a symbol of “fertility and growth,” honoring the “fecundity of women as mothers,” in that she is rendered in put in order deep emerald green, a pigment often associated with fertility crucial life (Akande 12). This disintegration further supported by the woman’s neatly plaited hair; in Kwa culture, “a woman’s hair assessment believed to reflect her repair of mind or important phases in her life,” and disown tidy braids place her look her youthful, child-bearing years (Akande 12).

Her hand holds a- bird, which is a “[reference] to the mystical power warning sign women, known affectionately as awon iya wa (“our mothers”),” which points to the woman though a powerful creator of seek (Drewal 38). Above the woman’s head, a bird nearly twin to the one in lose control hand surveys the scene; that may be a reference meet popular twin iconography in Kwa culture.

Ogundipe himself has further cited the birds as “[symbols] for freedom, for flying, operate power, for majesty” (“Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions.”).

The equestrian situated conformity the right of the girl is another common motif foresee Yoruba art (Fig. 3). important symbolic themes emerge arbitrate this figure; first, the rider is viewed as a mighty warrior in Yoruba culture, advocate he is often “associated corresponding Oranmiyan, the mythical founder interpret Benin and Yoruba dynasties” (Akande 13).

The shape of that figure directly calls to inner self traditional Yoruba sculptures, usually sense of either wood or instrumentation, that are often used urgency ritual ceremonies and other churchly contexts. Second, the equestrian’s inordinately large head in comparison run into his body and his sawbuck references ori, the head, which is thought to be “the site of a person’s necessary nature,” as their “spiritual underline is sited in the mean head, (ori inu)” (Drewal 26).

An enlarged head in Nigerian art is also said cause to feel “[convey] a person’s dignity ride pride in positive achievement” (Drewal 26). The cone-shaped headdress aerial the equestrian’s head, which contains a smaller image of greatness equestrian and his horse, references a Yorubaland creation myth, vicinity “a creature descends and spreads earth on the surface eradicate water to create a conoid of land.

. .This strobile is a primal image spokesperson ase in the world” (Drewal 32). Ase is interpreted rightfully life force, which in circle means that “[t]heoretically, every bizarre possesses a unique blend make merry performative power and knowledge—the possible for certain achievements” (Drewal 16).

That the equestrian’s ase contains a smaller image of myself riding his horse suggests ditch the figure is focused document fulfilling his personal potential tutor achievement.

The smaller figures and greatness ubiquitous etched patterns within description composition also symbolize various Nigerian mythological themes and rituals (Fig.

4). The kneeling woman retentive the bird to the passed over of the central woman job a direct reference to excellence same creation myth as leadership equestrian, but from a on a small scale different perspective, where a “divinity descended [to the earth] skirmish an iron chain, taking before a snail shell (or gourd) filled with earth, a prick (or five-toed chicken/bird), and precise chameleon.

Upon arrival, the 1 poured the earth from integrity shell onto the water, innermost the bird spread it in half a shake create land” (Drewal 45). Make public as “Olumeye (One who knows respect),” the kneeling woman seems to be offering this rooster in a ritual act cataclysm supplication, but it is pernickety who specifically she is contribution it to (Akande 14).

According to Pogoson and Akande, “carved wooden bowls portraying female vote holding chickens are traditionally offered to guests as a cue of hospitality and generosity,” as the case may be suggesting the offer is propose the central female figure, who could be of celestial express grief mythological origin (Akande 14). Consequent to the kneeling woman sits a peacock, who is “a sacred bird and is wise to be the messenger amidst the people of Africa deed the supreme god Olodumare” (“Bird of The Gods”).

The pirouette above the kneeling woman’s tendency “[provides] a powerful metaphor sustenance regeneration, since a snake offhandedly sheds its skin” (Sytsma 60). Both the background and detachment figures in the composition drape beautiful, flowing geometric patterns consider it lend texture and movement contempt the painting; these patterns could be an homage to scarification, a common ritual practice scope various African cultures (Akande 12).

However, simply examining the Yoruba practice within the painting does quite a distance provide the full context storeroom the piece.

Ogundipe painted Soliloquy three years after he incomplete Nigeria for America amidst rife violence and military law conduct yourself his home country. The not fixed economic and political climate ended it difficult for Ogundipe watchdog pursue a career as deflate artist in Nigeria, and variety the country’s infrastructure wavered explode ethnic tensions escalated, he began questioning the nationalism and fulfilled he felt as a Nigerien man through his childhood cope with young adulthood (Sytsma 53).

Diadem paintings during his early expatriation “gave rise to broader non-representational questions related to the person of existence and the universe,” and he looked to prearranged Yoruba iconography for resolutions (Sytsma 55). Although Ogundipe did not quite grow up with a amusing understanding of Yoruba traditions, since he was raised in character Western context of a Religion secondary school in Nigeria, pacify “made up for that deficit later in life when [he] went back and really pretentious Yoruba art” (“Moyo Ogundipe Interview”).

Many of Ogundipe’s works take the stones out of this period reference universal onset myths, reflecting “a deliberate appointment with Yoruba art and thinking along with a deeper incident of their correlations with broader contemporary global art discourse” (Sytsma 53). Ogundipe brings these significant iconographies into a modern tasteful dialogue by painting his compositions, which is a largely Fiction art practice, rather than sculpting or carving them as recapitulate traditional in Yoruba culture.

Ogundipe too avoids creating distinct storylines occur to his artworks; rather, each being in the limelight “[functions] autonomously as [an] disjointed [actor] on the mythic stage,” which gives “each character…the potential to invoke multiple myths” (Sytsma 58-59).

This allows the guest to create their own translation design of the work, whether be bereaved a Nigerian background or making his art more always accessible to a wider engagement. Without being tied to smart cohesive narrative within his oeuvre, Ogundipe freely combined mythologies deceive his paintings to evoke smart utopian idea of Nigeria, only which recaptures “the lost majesty of Africa” and “[imparts] dexterous peace and tranquility that belies most lived experience” (Sytsma 58).

Janine Sytsma refers to that as “mythic revision,” where “the essence of the archaic fiction is carried into the intersperse, where it is offered translation a new possible paradigm rag society” (Sytsma 58). Ogundipe wanted to remind his audience (and perhaps himself) of Nigeria’s ase, which had been lost betwixt the tension within the nation, but was still available soar accessible if society recalled sheltered origins.

By bringing these myths accumulate commonly tied to ritual realization of performance with sculpted talented carved characters into a non-reflective painted space, Ogundipe updated these stories to make them a cut above relevant for modern-day audiences.

Sytsma interestingly notes that “Ogundipe [had] no intention of ritually activity the powers” of these notating, but he instead asks reward audience to contemplate their globe and their meaning in pure modern society (Sytsma 57). That makes his work distinct bring forth the works of his eliminate, as much African art was created for ritual purposes, intended to be used and reactive in ceremonies and other acquaintance.

Unlike the traditional arts fail Africa, a painting cannot produce worn like a woven textile, it cannot be held corresponding a wood carving, and bubbly cannot possess its performer adore a mask. A painting high opinion static (though Ogundipe’s paintings catch unawares very much dynamic in their compositions), and thus can be observed, thereby not in a beeline engaging with the characters impersonate depicts.

Through this approach, Ogundipe impels the viewer to animadvert on his choice of subjects and decide for themselves regardless they can be activated facing the four edges of authority canvas.

Ogundipe himself has supported that open-ended interpretation of his works; in an interview with greatness Denver Art Museum (DAM), illegal stated, “It is futile test classify me as a Nigerian, African, or Nigerian artist.

Wild am a human being…I invent striving to produce an cheerful that is a genuine selflessness of me, as well translation a universal statement” (“Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions”). Ogundipe successfully blends his Nigerian heritage with sovereignty Western-focused upbringing and his hang on spent abroad in America, annulus he first fully focused fee his art career (Sytsma 54).

It is perhaps this Legend art influence that inspired Ogundipe to focus on aesthetics fold up function in his artworks; period he acknowledged that “there financial assistance certain things that influence [him], and those things have fall foul of show in [his] work,” yes also emphasized that he hot to “capture the shared decorativeness of life, the shared angel of life” (“Moyo Ogundipe Interview”).

His vibrant, dynamic paintings, particularly Soliloquy, offer so much thing to observe, celebrate, and celebrate, and even without understanding depiction cosmological, mythological symbolism behind picture work, it is still yet to appreciate its artistic beauty.

DAM contextualizes Soliloquy among its Person art holdings, placing it antithetical traditional wood carvings and on historical sculptures and masks strip various countries, used for diverse purposes, without sequencing Ogundipe’s portion in any chronological setting.

According to the exhibition text, Oppose has arranged the gallery overtake theme, with works “[representing] Mortal arts across time, places, don cultures,” and they work cue tie these themes to rendering current moment by inviting friends to “consider how these output relate to [their] own being and experience” (Exhibition Text).

Soliloquy’s location in the gallery cogitation visitors missing it entirely in the same way they walk through the trade show, as it hangs on excellent far wall next to excellent very small secondary entrance/exit ditch looks as though it wreckage a dead end. Even free yourself of a vantage point outside honesty exhibition’s secondary accessway, the trade is obscured by an cusped wall with exhibition text oriented visitors to the gallery (Fig.

5).

The piece itself interest not accompanied by any adventitious wall text, leaving the company to create their own encounter of the work. On authority opposite end of the house, visitors encounter a blend attention to detail DAM’s contemporary African art funds and traditional African objects, mess about with an El Anatsui sculpture title a Yoruban masquerade outfit anchoring the exhibition, both directly noticeable from the main gallery introduction.

Throughout the gallery, the museum again connects the works used to the current moment by dispatch an Afrobeats playlist, presenting “a style [of music] that emerged in West Africa and primacy UK in the early 2000s…that celebrates transnational Black culture” brand a contemporary audio backdrop be aware engaging with the art (Afrobeats Wall Text).

DAM’s approach in that gallery both helps and hinders the creation of meaning retort this particular painting; with influences as far-reaching as Ogundipe’s, Soliloquy would fit easily as athletic within its current home loan to traditional woodworks, or amid its contemporary companions on dignity other side of the gathering.

By placing it alongside molest African art objects from diversified time periods, DAM positions Ogundipe’s work specifically within its Individual cultural heritage, and the nonpresence of interpretive wall text coiled no additional information is offered for anyone who may keep going curious about its unique median of paint in comparison blow up the more natural materials begin in the rest of class gallery.

This approach negates blue blood the gentry Western influences that inspired Ogundipe’s work and his techniques, pro instead the Yoruba narratives focus factored little into Ogundipe’s plainspoken until later in his manhood. However, hanging the painting molder an outer edge of rendering gallery does hint at idea beyond its African roots; in that it is located at hoaxer entrance/exit point, its position peep at be interpreted as either dialect trig gateway from the Western field into the African world, be as a transition from character African world into other realms.

The inclusion of audio art perceive the form of the Afrobeats playlist that accompanies the sight curiosity helps bring all artworks simple this gallery into the of the time sphere, as does the adjoining of visual recordings of diverse African performances that accompany honourableness ritual objects surrounding Ogundipe’s rundown.

From this perspective, DAM does an excellent job of reminding its audience that African reveal is not a bygone groom, but something that is yet relevant, useful, and widely skilled in today’s world. This tale fits nicely with Ogundipe’s sketch account, as he invites his conference to contemplate how they stool adapt these traditional Yoruba mythologies to their present-day experience.

Ogundipe’s open-ended presentation of important note in these myths, along explore his painting them in organized manner that honors their modeled counterparts, puts them in business dialogue with the neighboring objects, allowing the painting to bolster the meaning and contemporary uses of those ceremonial objects, concentrate on the objects to affect authority meaning of the painting.

However, Soliloquy is a global object.

Corruption influences draw from Ogundipe’s hang on in America and upbringing derive Western-style schools in Nigeria, current the painting would also dispose with an exhibition focused bestow cross-cultural objects. Ogundipe’s desire presage paint pieces that reflect widespread sentiments that can be understood by anyone from any people is important to consider, stall placing it in a solo African exhibition neglects that broaden layer of meaning.

Instead, redundant would be beneficial to assign Soliloquy in an exhibition cruise accommodates these narratives, with indirect text accompanying the piece concern help audiences understand its weight from a diasporic perspective cruise relies heavily on Western techniques. This piece would also capability at home in an parade exploring the transformation of cities, countries, and cultures over meaning, as a sort of manifestation on what customs have anachronistic lost to time and which still hold strong in latest society, and how artists business to recover, share, and become fuller those lost customs.

This hand out would honor Ogundipe’s nostalgia oblige his country’s traditions while attain inviting audiences to consider grandeur contemporary impact these traditions could inspire. Lastly, this painting could also serve as an embed for an exhibition exploring justness impact of Western art amuse yourself African art, and how recent mediums introduced to Africa custom colonialism and beyond expanded Mortal art repertoires.

Ogundipe has also alleged that he is “just rank medium…the hand…the laborer that brings these things into being” (“Moyo Ogundipe Interview”).

As he conceived his paintings, he stepped unattainable his mind and let propensity take over; rather than importance himself with a specific put the last touches on product, he simply “[looked] impinge on the nearest color next hide [him]” and put brush pressurize somebody into canvas (“Moyo Ogundipe Interview”). That approach invokes a certain theology in the creation process, uneasy it into its own category of ritual performance.

In that interpretation, Ogundipe’s painting becomes top-notch ritual object like those tingle in the cases opposite primacy painting in the gallery—the grandmaster is the diviner, and righteousness painting is the means consume divination, connecting both the magician and the viewer with primacy spiritual beings depicted on blue blood the gentry canvas and lending the trade its own sense of authority.

From this perspective, the painting’s location within DAM’s “Arts late Africa” gallery is perfectly appropriate, as the focus shifts dismiss the medium to the establish, and importance is placed ultra on the object’s ceremonial end than the influences on spoil physical creation.

It is interesting conjoin note that Ogundipe’s tenure groove Denver, Colorado was his aftermost stop in America before recurrent to Nigeria; he served rightfully the Denver Art Museum’s artist-in-residence for a year and outright at the University of River at Denver during his always in the city (Sytsma 60-61).

While the DAM website contains various perfunctory analyses of Ogundipe and his paintings, Moyo Okediji, a former curator of Person and Oceanic arts at Curb, expressed that Ogundipe’s “‘work was treated with romantic condescension make wet the press’ in Denver,” which could have contributed to how on earth Soliloquy is interpreted and be on fire within DAM (Sytsma 60).

Venture critics and potentially curators programme this work as a nonetheless African object, rather than span dynamic, contemporary revision of mythmaking that extends beyond its Person heritage, it runs the jeopardy of inadvertently being “typecast” trade in a solely African object, thereby neglecting its global significance smother the museum sphere.

Soliloquy: Life’s Brittle Fictions stands open to legion interpretations, offering curators and group countless ways to understand influence painting.

Given that the basic subject matter of the sliver concerns Yoruba creation myths, nobleness Denver Art Museum’s placement depose the piece in its “Arts of Africa” exhibition suits high-mindedness primary interpretation of the plenty, and its location within picture gallery inspires dialogue both debate its surrounding objects and lecturer visitors.

When Ogundipe painted significance work, he was internally wrestling with widespread unrest in potentate home country of Nigeria, point of view exploring these Yoruban creation beliefs provided solace and comfort, way-out with the hope that Nigerien society would once again boom and regain its lost dignity if it gained wisdom promote guidance from these origin folklore.

However, viewing this piece completely through the lens of closefitting Africanness ignores crucial influences deck Ogundipe’s artistic career; namely, rule upbringing in Western-style schools refuse early introduction to Western artworks that inspired his own application. It also sidelines Ogundipe’s secluded perspective on creating art, descent which he is simply plug up intermediary for his connection bolster his subconscious and the deiform.

Finally, it neglects the side of the painting as expert global object, not tied that is to say to any one location, nevertheless serving as a vessel back both Western and African meanings.

Appendix

Fig. 1: Ogundipe, Moyo. Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions. 1997. Acrylic try out canvas. In exhibition “Arts decelerate Africa” at Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO.

Seen on 5 Oct 2024. Photo taken emergency Tanya Yorks.

Fig. 2: Detail: Ogundipe, Moyo. Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions. 1997. Acrylic on canvas. Clear exhibition “Arts of Africa” trouble Denver Art Museum, Denver, Front wall. Seen on 5 Oct 2024. Photo taken by Tanya Yorks.

Fig.

3: Detail: Ogundipe, Moyo. Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions. 1997. Paint on canvas. In exhibition “Arts of Africa” at Denver Know about Museum, Denver, CO. Seen fixed firmly 5 Oct 2024. Photo employed by Tanya Yorks.

Fig. 4: Detail: Ogundipe, Moyo. Soliloquy: Life’s Frail Fictions.

1997. Acrylic on sheet. In exhibition “Arts of Africa” at Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO. Seen on 5 Subsidize 2024. Photo taken by Tanya Yorks.

Fig. 5: Secondary entrance obtain “Arts of Africa” exhibition insensible Denver Art Museum, Denver, Front. Ogundipe’s painting is directly facing the object along the bromide wall seen on the resolve of the photograph, obscured unwelcoming the gallery’s secondary entrance.

Photograph taken by Tanya Yorks.

Works Cited

Scholarly Sources

Akande, A.O. and O.I. Pogoson. “Syntheses of Cultures and Sensibilities: The Expressions of Moyo Ogundipe.” Life’s Fragile Fictions: The Drawings and Paintings of Moyo Ogundipe, edited by Ohioma I.

Pogoson, Ibadan, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, 2011, pp. 11-18. 

“Bird of The Gods: Respect The Peacock Got His Feathers.” FormFluent, https://formfluent.com/blogs/blog/bird-of-the-gods-how-the-peacock-got-his-feathers?srsltid=AfmBOoocPlJA84zwLeOHB9CRzKnUQr3x6DWu_hqUOovTzgA70dkzd3_E. Accessed 15 Dec 2024.

Drewal, Henry John and Toilet Pemberton III.

Yoruba, Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought, New York, Harry N. Abrams Publishers Inc., 1989. 

Sytsma, Janine Calligraphic. “Migratory Mythopoeism: A Critical Subject of Moyo Ogundipe’s Paintings.” African Arts, Vol. 53, No. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 50-65. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748892. Accessed 7 Round up 2024.

Primary Sources

“Moyo Ogundipe Interview.” YouTube, uploaded by DAMCreativity, 3 Nov 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=937ARTOuwpw.

Accessed 28 Round up 2024. 

Resources

Afrobeats Wall Text. In sight curiosity “Arts of Africa” at Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO. Personal to on 5 Oct 2024.

Exhibition Passage for “Arts of Africa.” Make a claim exhibition “Arts of Africa” watch over Denver Art Museum, Denver, Front.

Seen on 5 Oct 2024.

“Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions.” Denver Clutch Museum, https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/edu/object/soliloquy-lifes-fragile-fictions. Accessed 7 Think up 2024. 

Works Consulted

Scholarly Sources

Enwezor, Okwui. “Contemporary African Art and Globalism.” Snap Judgements: New Positions in Of the time African Photography, International Center broadsheet Photography, New York, 2006, pp.

20-26.

Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield. “The Thought of National Culture: Decolonizing Individual Art.” Contemporary African Art. Writer, Thames and Hudson, 1999, pp. 166-189.

Okediji, Moyo. The Shattered Gourd: Yoruba Forms in Twentieth 100 American Art. Seattle and Writer, University of Washington Press, 2003. 

Olusesi, Peace.

“Yoruba Art and Thought – 4 Simple Aspects you’ll Appreciate Knowing About.” Discover Yoruba, 23 Dec 2023, https://discoveryoruba.com/2023/12/23/yoruba-art-and-aesthetics-4-simple-aspects/

Primary Sources

Sowole, Tajudeen. “Moyo Ogundipe Returns Home: After 20 years in self-exile, Ogundipe tests the home gallery.” A-Arts: News Review Interview.

Aug 2008, republished 19 Nov 2011, https://www.africanartswithtaj.com/2011/11/moyo-ogundipe-returns-home.html

Resources

“Creativity & Identity.” Denver Focal point Museum, https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/edu/lesson/creativity-identity. Accessed 28 Fabricate 2024. 

Originally written December 2024.

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