By Enyeribe Ejiogu
Members of Nigeria’s creative community have sustained their growing contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) through their works which are either being sold in the country or exported overseas.
In furtherance of this laudable effort, O’DA Art Gallery, Victoria Island, Lagos, is hosting a solo exhibition titled ‘Citizens of Nowhere’ to promote the new works of Anthony Nsofor, an alumnus of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who has gained widespread renown in his 20-year career.
Curator of the gallery, Sunshine Alaibe, in a brief chat with journalists at the formal opening of the exhibition which will run till October 21, 2023, said the event is the “culmination of several moments of introspection by the artist whose career path has burrowed through different continents and cultures.”
Over the years, Nsofor’s practice had taken him from Nigeria to Cote D’Ivoire and United States of America. With this wealth of experience, his themes are perceived from the global lens while carefully articulating his thoughts using elements of Uli, Nsibidi and adinkra traditions.
Sunday Sun further learnt that he began working in 2017 on the project which is about identity and cultural dislocation, tapping into personal experiences and the point of view of others.
Alaibe said that Nsofor’s conscious engagement with others had served as the eye-opener on the issues of migration and identity – the focus of the exhibition which opened on September 23.
“He started the series as a reflection of that from his own personal experience but he also felt like he needed to document other people as well, differently. All through his 20-year career, he has been painting as a reflection of his study. His style is influenced by his time at school in Nsukka. If you look at his works, you will see all shapes and his deliberate ways of drawing faces. It is abstract expressionism.’’
She further revealed that the artist projects his shared experience of feeling alienated through the body of works.
“It is being kind of ironic that in being together, you are meant to be isolated but then you are all sharing the experience of being alienated in one space.”
Nsofor’s piece titled ‘Some Came By Sea, Others By Land,’ is a grim composition comprising faces of people being rescued at sea. This provocative work confronts the issue of migration and the reality of living in the shadows of someone else’s experience.
Nsofor, who joined the conversation virtually spoke of the frustration that came with leaving one’s home country in search of a better life and the complexity of identity crisis in the new country of residence. For him, the nostalgia for the homeland never leaves.
The solo exhibition which parades no fewer than 25 works captures the last two years of that experience arranged and presented in series. Nsofor, who is in the first year of his two-year residency programme at the Turpedo Factory Art Centre described the body of works as “biographical.”
“Travelling meant me becoming someone else. I started questioning the things that make one Nigerian and you find out that certain things mean things that may tie you down to an identity. I realise also that with the internet, we can have a personality that spreads across borders – physical borders, boundaries and geographical location and all of that no longer restrain as it did some twenty years ago. So it becomes possible that I can be very present in Nigeria and at the same time, very present in the US or China at the same and have such information and interaction with different continents. There is an opportunity to be more,’’ he explained.
Although his roots in Nsukka art school influences his techniques, his skills may not be as traditional as the Uli motifs are. His calligraphic forms, sometimes, include Arabic texts – suggestive of a language or culture. The use of lines remains an essential feature in his works that speak to his reality.