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Each time
I contemplate Obiora Udechukwu’s works, my mind goes back to those
humble words of Heinrich Heine, the German Romantic poet, when he
declared: “Aus meinem grossen Schmerzen mach’ ich die kleinen
Lieder” (Through my great labour, I create little songs).
Heine’s songs, ironically, were not little after all. They only
provided the wings on which his “acid wit” could fly, driven by the
wind of his “penetrating awareness of the social problems of (his)
day”.1 By describing his creations as “little songs,”
Heine was only exhibiting the bizarre inclination to self-effacement
– extreme humility – which is the lot of many geniuses, especially
great artists.
In the
same manner, a cursory look may mislead the viewer to dismiss
Udechukwu’s works, especially the drawings, as simplistic. There is
also a seeming simplicity that equally marks the fire behind his
exemplary personality. Like Heine, Udechukwu knows the problems of
his time the way he knows the back of his hand. At 58, he certainly
understands the contradictions and conflicts in the Nigerian
question, especially in its post-war characterisation. It is these
conflicts and contradictions that are at the centre of Udechukwu’s
imagination, as he concerns himself with the pursuit of truth and
excellence, which are the germ of great art.
All those
who have followed the history of art in Nigeria scrupulously in the
post-war period would quickly recall the role played by Udechukwu
and his contemporaries at Nsukka in changing the face of Nigeria’s
young modernism at the time. Of course, ante- 1980, the Zaria greats
had reached their peaks, wherever they found themselves. In
consonance with the Igbo proverb that avers that “Onwa tie,
ochaalu ibe ya” (When a moon waxes, it wanes to give chance to
another), in the 1980s other stars were already rising to
reinforce the gains of the Zaria rebellion2. It is
perhaps in this sense that Professor Anya O. Anya once remarked that
Obiora Udechukwu was “playing the St. Paul of Uche Okeke’s St.
Peter.”
And he has played it well;
not through the unreliable logic of age which can be
hypocritical in these parts, but through hard work, a matchesless
sense of commitment to art and action, and exemplary rectitude. If
any Nsukka/Uli artist attained superlative success, that
artist is Obiora Udechukwu. For not only has his works been well
received in art circles around the world, they have equally lit the
path for generations of Nsukka artists and others. As Michael
Crowder affirms, Udechukwu’s art “provided a real departure in
contemporary Nigerian art.”
Udechukwu’s pursuit of a social vision in his oeuvre – including,
painting, drawing and poetry – is, perhaps, part of the centralising
magic of his creative sensibilities. I am unaware of any other
Nigerian artist who has so consistently sacrificed his sacred
energies at the altar of the commonweal, a value which has shrunk so
abysmally in these highly tormented times. As Norbert Aas, the
German anthropologist and notable promoter of African art, has put
it, “Noch lange Jahre nach dem Ende der Schrecken malte Udechukwu
Bilder von Hunger, Flüchtlingselend und der Arronganz der Machthaber.”3
Even in exile, Udechukwu has continued to identify with the positive
values and common aspirations of his people and culture. He refuses
to lose his cultural compass on the mighty, if nihist , sea of
globalisation. Unlike some other African artists in the continent
and in the Diaspora, he has not denounced his African identity. He
is, he says, not only an African artist but Igbo artist. This
philosophy has indeed informed his thematic vision as could be seen
in his numerous works.
Ada
Udechukwu, on the other hand, is not necessarily a poor shadow of
Obiora Udechukwu, her husband. Her professional profile is not a
lack-lustre chip off her husband’s. A graduate of the English
Language at University of Nigeria and an accomplished poet, Ada
Udechukwu turned seriously to visual arts in 1983 and had her first
show with Mary Ezewuzie at Nsukka and later in Lagos in 1984.
Although
she experimented in drawing while she studied English, her interest
later shifted to textile. She produced some tie-dyes and
hand-painted fabric/fashion designs as well as applique. Since the
early 1990s she has put ink to paper, producing drawings and washes
of remarkable linearity and compelling lyricism.
Technically and stylistically, there is no doubt that Ada
Udechukwu’s art has been strongly influenced by her husband’s, but
her works have a character and a vision that are entirely their own.
They are essentially a pursuit of happiness through an exploration
of one’s emotional and imaginative resources and may not always
share the characteristic moralist, and often trenchant vision of her
husband’s creations.
This
claim is vividly evidenced in the themes of her watercolours,
Sunset, Crossroads, Dreaming. Her ink drawings and wash such as
In the Palm of My Hand. Interiors 1, 11, and 111,
Distances and Where Things Grow are journeys by the
artist through the lonesome corridors of her own mind. But beyond
their technical and emotional charm, Ada Udechukwu’s works also rely
on the calculated deployment of elements, the beautiful interface
between positive and negative spaces, and the poetic calibration of
lines and tones.
The above
qualities may be taken for granted in Obiora Udechukwu’s works,
which are not new in galleries and pages of catalogues and history
books. But the present exhibition reveals that the Professor of
Painting and Drawing is still searching; he is not tired; the
Ijele4 is still out in the field dancing. He has not
allowed his commitment to art to be weakened by the maddening pride
of achievement. Professors in today’s Nigeria are wont to hang on to
past glories, as if the professorship was the natural death
of an academic career; but not for Obiora Udechukwu. In 1994 when
his professorship was announced at University of Nigeria, with
effect from 1984, he told a fellow member of the Aka Circle of
Exhibiting Artists that his new position demanded extra commitment
and hard work and “the journey” had only begun. Those who had
followed Uchechukwu’s artistic trajectory from the 1970s to the time
he left for the United States in 1997 would agree with him after
viewing the present exhibit. Not only do the works exude exciting
freshness, the enabling stylistic and technical adventures in the
works betray Obiora Udechukwu’s tireless search for new challenges
at the frontier.
Generally, Obiora Udechukwu’s works in the present collection are an
extension of a usual pattern. But he fully appreciates the Igbo
saying that one does not get the best view of masquerade from one
angle. The masquerade being in motion, the spectator has to move to
satisfy the fleeting cadence of his own excitement and curiosity. So
the artist confronts his creative work from different perspectives.
His very free but exciting watercolour technique, his uncanny
ability to render living and sensitive lines, and his deft marriage
of handwritten text and sinuous lines have all taken a more vigorous
and dramatic turn in his recent efforts, as can be seen in
Writing in the Sky, Landscape of Memory, Mirror in the Storm, Earth
and Sky, Nne Mmanwu, Night Journey, among others.
What the
two artists have done in Spaces and Silences is to open a
window into their experiences in the last decade, but more
particularly in the last 7 years when they have been living and
working in the United States. But the experiences, surprisingly, are
not encircled in visions of exile. The artists may have acquired the
eye of the eagle in their continuing sojourn abroad and can see
distant and new horizons. But their commitment to the rhythms of the
homestead remains strong as ever.
C. Krydz Ikwuemesi
Notes:
-
The New Lexicon: Webster’s
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the English Language.
Connecticut: Lexicon Publications, Inc. 1992, p. 449.
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The term “rebellion” has been
rejected by most critics and writers in relation to the
activities of the Zaria Art Society in the late 1950s, because
rebellion can been negatively characterised. But I think the
term can also be positively characterized insofar as it relates
to a constructive interrogation of the status quo, which, in
essence, is what the Art Society did in Zaria.
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“Long after the end of the horror
(of the civil war in Nigeria), Udechukwu still paints pictures
of hunger, of suffering refugees and the arrogance of those in
authority.” See Norbert Aas, 1999. Den Lauf Der Dinge
Beeinflussen. Bayreuth: Bumerang Press, p.13.
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King of Igbo masquerades. tj.,
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