By Henry Akubuiro
Darlington Chukwumezie is a Nigerian contemporary artist whose work transcends sculpture and painting. With a multidisciplinary approach to art-making, he explores forms and shapes in nature and the abstract world.
Elements from nature, such as tree roots and installations of geometric forms, are evident in his creativity. Another vital part of his work includes conceptual art, where he makes quirky yet potent statements on the environmental and existential dangers which emanate from man’s activities on Earth.
Chukwumezie, a self-taught artist who lives in Tarkwa Bay, Lagos, had evinced a natural inclination for the arts early in life. “Art has to be continuously created for the nurturing of the soul,” he told Daily Sun in an interview.
Explaining his gravitation to sculpture and painting, the artist said most of the artists he encountered in his environments while developing as an artist pivoted their art around painting & sculpture.
Curious to know how he became self-taught? The artist explained: “The fundamentals of every skill are imbibed through practice, books on art to lay the fundamental foundations were the pillars to my progress. Visits to galleries taught me a lot. Participations in joint exhibitions exposed me and influenced my core areas of art. Residencies with other artists in other media expanded my scope and really widened my horizon.”
For him, “Art is the mind seeing what others do not easily see and creative imagination is crucial. So blending all these together and especially nature taught me art.”
Together with Marcamaria Rodrigo, a Spanish artist, he runs the Tarkwa Bay Museum in the riverine community of Lagos. Chukwumezie reminds us that Nigeria’s first museum at Onikan, beside TBS, Lagos, was “started” in Tarkwa Bay by British Ken Murray, first curator of Nigeria Museum.
Tarkwa Bay Museum is open to the public – physically and digitally – from 7am to 10 pm daily. Tarkwa Bay itself has a rich history woven around it. Lord Lugard’s house was located there (now called LYC chalets), former War Zones, State House Annex, where late Queen Elizabeth II was housed in her 1958 visit and where Kwame Nkrumah was housed during the Queen’s visit in 1958.
Teaming up with Rodrigo to run the Tarkwa Bay Museum has also helped the Nigerian. He remarked: “With Marcamaria, we share a common goal; we are motivators to each other. She helps me unleash my innermost creative energy in virtually all spheres of life. We are one.” Tarkwa Bay Museum is strategically located in the area on the west mole rail line.
What does art mean to him? Chukwumezie responds that, “apart from the fact that art helps us to connect to what it means to be human, it is a great tool to transform how we feel or view things generally in life –art is a great transformer.”
He is an eco-friendly artist relying on waste materials to create spellbinding works. “Collecting waste materials is a matter of the ‘eye’,” he said. “I have a special eye to see the thrash that becomes treasure.
That makes it less cumbersome. The ‘ey3’ seeing does not take away all the cumbersomeness but it helps. The work is really, really looking until the objects talk to me. They fuse together and tell me what to pick.
“The second part of the process is moving them to the fusion point.
A basic part of any process is ‘transport’. Blood pressure is transport; space travel is transport. Turning trash to treasure is transport, but we have developed a system for each part of the process. Any very well organised system makes a process less cumbersome. Our systems are very organised, capable of surviving/living successfully, especially under a particular environment.” His Trash to Treasure exhibition was a big success.
His artistic mediums include wood, metal and plastic, but he also uses assortments of found objects. In his Lagos studio, there is an abundance of detritus which helps inspire ideas while serving as an endless supply of media.
“The context of a material is often important, not only a part of the creative process but equally as a vital element in making artistic statements,” he noted. For instance, he has used tree roots to create works under the environmental theme.
Chukwumezie has also used plastic waste to make works of art that speak to his particular concern about the endangered marine life and the dangers of man’s activities in the sea. Equally, he used a selection of medical waste to make works of art that speak about the urgent need to fix the health sector in Nigeria.
The artist doesn’t quantify success strictly in monetary terms, though his art is highly viable. “First and foremost, I am very, very happy. I have a very high standard of always digging out a better way of getting the best which makes me really, really happy. Second: I feel really satisfied –turning trash to treasure is satisfying and viable. I do not just count time, I always make time count. It is very fulfilling to see great end products,” he said.
Continuing, he told Daily Sun: “The ability to bring out valuable things from thrash is so very fulfilling. I am always fulfilled. Third: I am very positive and optimistic, for my products are put to very productive use. They solve problems. They assist people and enhance life. They continue to be useful. They solve people’s problems.
“I am, therefore, very positive and optimistic about this. I make money. People buy my products and services. I make money because I tailored my products and services to regular daily needs of people. So my business is very viable. My relationship with the eco-friendly is very, very viable. Eco-friendliness in one word. The meaning is to add value to yourself, your environment, the global village with its great stress on better use.
“For me, art has brought me a very steady increase in my streams of income. It has opened opportunities that I jumped at. We are so keen not to allow any opportunity to slip. Can you imagine that, in any industry, community, class skill, etcetera, there are those making 10 units of profit per unit of time, in the same context there are those making 100 units of profit per unit of time; still there are few others making 1000, even 1000 000 units per unit of time.
“So profitableness is a matter of where are you? What level have you successfully achieved? My contemporaries and I have the best art environments to make money, digitally, physically etcetera. It is left to each of us to fully maximise all our opportunities.”
The future, he said, was yet to come. However, he is upbeat, “We are steadily improving our systems. We are continuously getting the very best from all our partners. We are onboarding better and better. The future is better. After all, does the future not start today? It does.”
At the Tarkwa Bay Art Museum and Studio, he and his Spanish partner organise free art workshops for children, teenagers and young adults using recycled items sourced on the beach. That’s part of giving back to society.