The
Triumph of Asele:
Uche Okeke At 70
Chinedu Ene-Orji
Contemporary Nigerian art
history will not be complete if Uche Okeke is not properly fitted in the
forefront. Starting as an undergraduate up until his retirement as a
professor, and even, while at rest in Asele Institute, Nimo, Uche Okeke
continues to straddle, the Nigerian art, nay, African, art scene.
As an undergraduate at the
Nigeria College of Arts, Science and Technology (NCAST), Zaria, in the
1950s, Uche Okeke led his contemporaries, in a spate of nationalism, to
protest against the Western-oriented art curriculum they were being taught.
This initiative did not end there but evolved into what Okeke termed
“natural synthesis.” Its thesis was built around a model where African
students were encouraged to imbue their art with vision and philosophy that
come from their immediate environment as against extraneous ones. This was a
system where motifs extracted from their culture and tradition was used to
aggregate their experience as well as contribute to national development.
Some of his contemporaries were Bruce Onobrakpeya, Yusuf Grillo, and Demas
Nwoko, Okechukwu Odita, late Simon Okeke, among others.
Subsequently, Uche Okeke went
ahead to evolve from Igbo Uli a unique style of draughtsmanship consisting
of elemental lines that were yet profound in execution and perception. It
was perhaps not a coincidence when he was commissioned to illustrate the
globally acclaimed African masterpiece, Things Fall Apart written by
the eminent Chinua Achebe.
A man of strong conviction,
Okeke lays his prodigious talent beside his beliefs. In the 1960s, during
the Nigerian/Biafran civil war, he packaged an exhibition that toured Europe
to prosecute the diplomatic battle that was opened there (the European
front) and to shore up the Biafran side.
After the war in the 1970s,
as a lecturer in the Fine and Applied Arts Department, University of
Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), he led a renaissance of sort that involved arching
back to the past to borrow from an art tradition (Uli body and wall
painting) peculiar to Igbo women, to help initiate and propagate the modern
Uli art movement/school. The volume of research, publications and exhibits
this initiative spawned is transgenerational and remains a testimony to
Okeke’s prowess as philosopher-artist.
In the 1976, Okeke attained
the rank of a professor and he retired honourably as the Dean, Faculty of
Arts, UNN about a decade later. He proceeded to Asele Institute, Nimo, which
he founded in the 1950s, not to rest (though he deserved it), but to
continue with the propagation of art. As an attestation to a life of
achievement, he has garnered numerous local, national and international
awards.
In all Prof. Uche Okeke, an
artist emeritus has built a corpus of work that spans his history. Some of
his creations are in private and public collections around the world. But
like all great men with a sense of history, shorn of pedantry and pecuniary
instincts, he has in his possession a sizeable and representative portion of
his oeuvre.
At a time like this, when our
journey through nationhood is fraught with the celebration of crass
mediocrity and opportunism, misplaced priorities and values and all manner
of evil, it is imperative that we document history properly and point at a
new vista by celebrating and honouring a genuine patriot, activist, national
hero, academic and distinguished artist, Prof. Uche Okeke, as he turns 70 in
April 2003.
Thematically, the
works of Uche Okeke over the years have been varied. However, three strings
of strong influence can be discerned. These are Igbo lore and myth,
Christian religion and personal experience. Where as Uche Okeke’s philosophy
and thought on national development through art and culture have been
documented in his essays and publications, he has not used his art to
propagate this more obviously. Apart from some of his works during the civil
war years, very few of his art works have made social commentary; at most
they have been a documentation of historical events. This is not a critique.
In all, the life work and art works, which Uche Okeke has executed, are a
testimony of an accomplished pathfinder, and a pointer to the efficacy of
sustained vision, faith and dedication.
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