By Henry Akubuiro
Taking art appreciation through the history of powerful ancient people whose strengths have vibrated across generations, artist, Dauda Mohammed mounts creativity on two-wheeler themes
Mohammed’s two-wheeler themes of 3D texture is scheduled to open as his solo art exhibition, Toys For Troys, showing from September 2-12, 2023 at Signature Beyond Art Gallery, 107, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos Island. Mohammed’s art of uncommon medium and themes will add freshness to the Lagos art scene as the artist displays his creative application of mixed media using such materials as wood nails on board, with automobile paints and acrylic.
In some of the pieces to be on display during the Toys for Troys exhibition, Mohammed brings his peculiar technique in mixed media to generate the beauty of creativity from two-wheelers. Among such mixed media works are ‘Harley Bucherer’, ‘Vespa Piaggio’, ‘Vespa Dior’ (New noble scooter), and quite a number of ‘Harley’ series.
The energy of the creativity from Mohammed aligns with the strength of the legendary Troy town of ancient Greek where men built great things, of which posterity never forgot.
Bringing that context into the space of the modern era, Mohammed captures ‘toys’ for the 21st men on two-wheelers. For Signature Beyond, a favourite gallery for artists with rare and uncommon art shows, the theme of the exhibition, Toys for Troys, “gives instances of fabricated machines for warriors.” The gallery stated that the artist had added his strokes and palette to the legendary Troy, using contemporary art form. Mohammed has shown at Signature Beyond’s many modern and contemporary art auctions since 2019 till date.
“In my work, I aim to explore themes of various dynamic subjects with five or more colours using 3-dimensional objects like wood nails, pushpins, cotton buds, screws, etcetera, to make something digital,” Mohammed explained in his Artist Statement.
“I enjoy making work that requires a physical proximity, working from intangible to tangible by invoking these mediums to generate a dialogue that has something to do with the effort, repetition, focus, discipline, absurdity and love that went into its making.”
The artist noted that viewing the works from a certain range provides what he described as “homogeneous arrangement of the medium clearly as an object, and when observed from a distance, the medium becomes an image.” He disclosed that his goal is to inspire viewers and followers of his work “to look more carefully at the work from close range also from a distance and feel something in the process.”
Part of the texts of the exhibition described the theme of the as giving instances of fabricated machines for warriors. It noted that the ancient Greek, where the artist got his inspiration, is known for historical conquests, which have been well documented.
“To mention a few of the major warriors in Troy, see with the ancient Greek, (Hector and Achilles) are clear examples of human capability, skills, and strategies that will lead to heroism. Among kings, countesses, princes, emperors and other courtiers, they were the representation of gods to the affairs of mankind.”
The artist’s colleague, Ibiok Bright, who also contributed texts to the exhibition noted that with warm heart of concern after years of effective studio practice, Mohammed brings forth the collection to harness the awareness of his audience about heroism, invention, and creativity. Ibiok disclosed that the exhibition took Mohammed and Signature Beyond “tremendous two years of preparation.”
After a Degree in Biochemistry from University of Ilorin; Mohammed launched himself into the creative field with Certificate in Graphics and 3d Animation from Aptech (Arena Multimedia). He spent a period of 12 years in the banking industry before leaving in 2015 to concentrate on creating art.
The artist started with painting and drawing with acrylic and oil paints, until recently when his work focused on using 3-D objects like cotton buds, pushpins, screws, nails, bottle tops, drilling on woods and plastics to make amazing artworks. His work combines creativity along with hours of diligent application using some computer graphic applications and photoshop he break an image down to a very low resolution and forces the computer to make the image out of only five colours (red, blue, yellow, black and white), then uses a grid map to show where to stick the object row by row. At first glance, the artwork appears to be a low-resolution portrait, but upon closer inspection, onlookers can see each piece is made up of thousands of coloured objects.
Mohammed’s passion for styles such as Pointillism, Mosaics and 3D art connected him to working for several organisations and individuals in promoting their brands. Among many projects of his is the bill board of Lasena bottle Water portrait hung on the company’s building at Ogba, in Lagos. He used 10,000 yellow, red, blue, black and white recycled bottle tops to make this amazing (bill board) with dimension of 20ft x 8ft.