Mathew Oyedele With the ongoing happenings in the country, Samuel Ajobiewe is right to entitle his recent exhibition The Indignant Eye . These happenings did not just start but the faulty lines have always been there to be maneuvered by those who are entrusted with the sanctity of Nigerian institutions. The exhibition took its title from the 1969 book by Ralph E. Shikes which positions the artist as a social critic. Ajobiewe is not an unknown name in the Nigerian art scene. He is a renowned artist who works across diverse media including pastel, watercolour and acrylic. He had his first solo exhibition in 2009 at Mydrim Gallery in Lagos and has since gone on hiatus until his recent exhibition at the National Museum, Lagos. Perhaps the thirteen year hiatus has enabled him to observe, contemplate and solidify his socio-political commentaries. One of his bold socio-politically themed pieces at the exhibition, albeit satirical, is The Ineffectual Scarecrow , an acrylic on canvas piece cre
Mathew Oyedele Samuel Nnorom's The Politics of Fabrics is an exhibition of works that were created during a one-month residency program at Guest Artists Space Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria. For the first time in his career, the artist who lives and works in Nsukka, was able to create works in Lagos – the economic and cultural capital of Nigeria – with materials obtained from it. The exhibited pieces continued the artist's interest in narratives and subjects around fabrics but marked a stylistic departure from his previous explorations of ankara fabrics which are centered around the examination of social structure, social organisation, human condition, safe spaces, distribution and distance. The new work looks at imported second-hand clothes from the West and how they affect the development of our local textile industry. These second-hand clothes and cast-off fabrics have different names in Nigeria. While they are popularly known as Okrika , they are also known as Akube , Bend Do