By Henry Akubuiro
Ebenezer Akinola was surrounded by artists while growing up. His father wasn’t a professional artist, but he could draw. From his siblings to his cousins, there were artists everywhere. “But I became the only one who pursued a career in art,” says Akinola in an e-chat with Daily Sun from France, where he has been on a business trip.
Akinola has since won renown for his paintings. His commissioned portraits of former Nigerian presidents – Nnamdi Azikiwe, Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdusalami Abubakar – are displayed at the National Gallery of Art, Lagos. But the journey to fame for Akinola didn’t just come in a blink of an eye.
As a student, he sacrificed his academics for art. “I can’t remember sitting down to read in my secondary school, which affected my Waec result,” he admits. “It was after that I sat up.”
In 1983, when he finished secondary school, there weren’t too many role models in art apart from a few artists he saw on TV, and art wasn’t as popular as it is today in Nigeria.
However, he wasn’t deterred. “I just wanted to be an artist, though my parents didn’t want me to do it. My mum wanted me to be an architect. My father, because he wanted to practice art before, said I should be allowed to study the course of my choice,” he recalls.
However, Akinola didn’t know what lay ahead after graduation. Many like him were likely going to end up as teachers –he didn’t mind. “I just wanted to be an artist,” he trips memory lane.
Akinola’s body of work gravitates towards portraiture, figurative and abstract art. What informed that? Akinola says he has had different stages in life: “In school, I loved to draw people’s faces. I loved to do figurative painting, with a little bit of abstraction. Initially, it was more like a law until now. I had to take representational art to be able to respond to the things around and make a statement for myself. It was more of myself. My personality is more of a figurative artist. I find composition and portraiture freer. The artist had to remain to himself. I don’t follow trends.”
As an undergraduate, his father used to give him N80 (eighty naira) monthly upkeep, but he was pleasantly surprised when he sold his first portrait for N100 (one hundred naira).
Initially, it wasn’t flattering to identify yourself as an artist, for “it was considered a hobby for some people, and something to earn a living from.”
It wasn’t until he graduated from the university that he sold an artwork for N200, which was good money then. I said, “So this is a profession?”
Even when he wasn’t sure where he was headed for, Akinola never relented. “Maybe it was more of an obsession than passion for me,” he recalls. “I could work as many hours as possible. I wanted to be relevant, which is the most important thing for an artist,” says Akinola.
His famous paintings of former Nigerian presidents still fascinate him. “I still think about these works till today. In an ideal society, maybe one should be recognised for that,” he says.
Thanks to the highflying Nigerian artist, Oluwole Omofemi, Akinola, last year, left his comfort zone in Ibadan to tour the world to get some international exposure, from Venice in Italy, to Amsterdam in Holland, and the Hellenic nation of Greece. At Venice, Akinola was captivated by the Venice mask.
“I was curious. Omofemi was always talking about us getting our narrative to be more international, and not just localised. You can also have a narrative connected to other parts of the world, So we started talking about the mask,” he says.
Though the Venice trip was for leisure, he got inspired by wonderful spectacles. He visited museums and exhibitions, including the “Archeology of Silence” exhibition. The luminance of colours of contemporary artists like Kehinde Wiley also enchanted him, a departure from the dark hues of the Italian old masters he saw. On his return to Nigeria, he was challenged to do better works, which he hopes will be exhibited soon.
At the moment, Akinola is champing at the bit. The latest trip was also facilitated by Omofemi to explore business opportunities. From Spain, where Omofemi had gone for “Out of Africa” residency, both artists travelled to France, where Akinola was signed by a gallery, Artdixsete,
through Omofemi’s connection. Akinola did some work there. Also, he visited museums, and was swept off his feet before moving to Spain where, once again, Omofemi got him signed to another gallery in Morocco, SO Art Gallery, Casablanca. He also did some work there.
But, why? “Sometimes it’s good for you to do the work in that place, get a feel of the people, go around town and try to learn more things about the people,” says Akinola. SO Gallery is organising an exhibition for him this year. It will also show his works at the forthcoming AKAA Art Fair.
“SO Art Gallery is going to represent me in North Africa, the Middle East and London,” he tells Daily Sun. He will also be part of the “Out of Africa” exhibition, to be curated by Oluwole Omofemi.
Akinola has been around the Nigerian art scene for over three decades, but now he wants to reach a wider global audience, exploring colours to their maximum strength.
“So these experiences abroad have shifted my narrative. I focus much more on black identity, because the way blacks are perceived by the western world is not good. I want to present Africaness in a grand manner. I want Africans to begin to see ourselves as dignified, too, and begin to see that inner beauty and strength.”
Comparing Nigerian art with what obtains abroad gets Akinola critical: “We are sleeping a bit; maybe we are just trying to wake up.” This low mark was informed by his conversations in France with art aficionados, who claimed ignorance of Nigerian artists.
“So I think we have to take advantage of Ben Enwonwus. The idea is not just to sell abroad but to be relevant. We didn’t take advantage of Ben Enwonwu’s breakthrough. We need to take advantage of that media exposure Ben Enwonwu brought. We have a lot to do as Nigerian artists.
We may be number one in Africa, but we need that limelight,” he says.
From a mere obsession in his early days as an artist, Akinola’s leap of faith has finally paid off home and abroad.