Homage to Asele: Foreword
By
Peter Areh
The mood of the moment is “let us go to
Asele in Nimo, Anambra State, to celebrate with Prof Uche Okeke”. The
enthusiastic and sparkling crowd will be made up of artists, gallery
owners, art collectors, journalists, writers, historians and friends of
the septuagenarian. What do we have in common? Admiration, respect, and a
keen sense of history.
To the wide spectrum of his admirers, Uche
Okeke represents an epic. We all know about the stories and circumstances
surrounding the art students' rebellion of the 1950's Nigerian College of
Arts, Science and Technology, now, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria that
invariably set precedents in the engrossing and objective quest for the
authentic African experience.
Directly or indirectly, he has inspired
many individuals to explore the various veins of age-old traditional
folktales, proverbs, and the kernel of ancestral wisdom in the process of
discovering or determining an indigenous flavour or hidden valences or
peculiar methods and modes.
Current trends in the art scene reflect
that the momentous episode in Zaria has been very crucial to art
development in Nigeria. Would there have been an intellectual leap of
sustained reasoning to bring forth theories of natural synthesis, and
minimalist formal articulation, a.k.a. Uliism, if the rebellion never
happened? He indeed is a legend.
The excitement and promise is wholesome,
but it is even more so when we remember that other legends of Zaria like
Bruce Onobrakpeya, Yusuf Grillo and his friends from preindependence
Nigeria will be there at Asele. To pay homage are
Tayo Adenaike, Ndidi
Dike, Chinwe Uwatse, Krydz Ikwuemesi, former students and followers at the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and artists from different persuasions in
Nigeria and abroad. Many others from all walks of life, from the arts,
from architecture, journalism, literary practice and banking will be
there. Art gallery proprietors will not be left out too, especially
Pendulum Art Gallery, one of the facilitators of this occasion.
As much as we feel the gravitation to
Asele, it is apparent that long speeches and strings of tribute will not
be enough. As a success story of African emancipation from
institutionalised unfamiliar rules, Uche Okeke stimulated bold, essential
and homegrown initiatives. Prof. Uche Okeke's paintings and drawings cause
surges of nostalgia. Nigeria's last days of innocence and the pre-oil boom
days, he recorded such moments in graphic style, characterised by
sumptuous rhythms.
Already, when I contemplate Asele, I feel
uli trellis and florid gestures tug at my heart. I feel immersed in the
shadowy dense foliages of the fragrant equatorial forest and in the calm
swirls and snaking twists of murmuring streams. There is also the feeling
of being privy to the fortunes of preceding years.
The celebration of Uche Okeke is a
throwback to the glories of Nigeria's pre-independence era when we sat
under the shades of groundnut pyramids in sober serenity and in perfect
sync with nature.
At last, I feel urged to ride on the wings
of goodwill, as favourable wind ripples flags and buntings festooned along
the way that leads to Asele Institute, Nimo, and Anambra State.
Peter Areh
(Director, Pendulum Art Gallery) |
