An interview with Adeola Balogun on Bubbles of Emotions.

Adeola Balogun is a Nigerian contemporary artist who explores his immediate environment for thematic references and materials. This writer met him at his recent exhibition "bubbles of emotions" and this interview occurred. 

Not enough for their greed.

         

Mathew: What informed the theme of this exhibition? Were there things bubbling in your mind?

Balogun: My name is Adeola Balogun, a visual artist. Whether you like it or not, there’s no way you can work in a vacuum as an artist. One way or the other the environment contributes significantly to what I do. We are emotional beings and the most important thing is to have your emotions under control. If you look at our environment socially, politically and economically there’s a lot going on and with these you hear all sort of lamentations from people; emotional outbursts. This is because of the fact that people are allowing their emotions to override their sense of judgement and when that happens, certainly there’ll be problems. That is why I titled this body of works “Bubbles of Emotion”. If you look at a drama for instance there are three sets of people involved; the actor, the audience and the director. The actor who has been given a role to play acts accordingly and the director knows everything about it. The audience gets totally involved in the outcome because he’s influenced by what he sees and this significantly affects him. So the question is which one do you want to be? Do you want to be the director, the audience or the actor? In my opinion, I think being the director is the best thing because it’s very good to be the director of your emotions or else there’ll be questions. That is basically what the theme is all about and this is also happening in our leadership cadre because there are some of the works that alludes to some of the leadership crisis we have in this country. And people get involved in these to the point of wanting to give up whereas it’s not about giving up but about sorting yourself out because no amount of lamentation can solve a problem. Once you can take care of your inner mind, certainly the outward happening is under control because if anything were to happen in the physical realm it must first of all be established in the spiritual realm. And if you are able to do that effectively, certainly you’ll be in charge of your life because significantly, our emotion contributes profoundly to some of the things we do.

Mathew: Your environment seems to provide you with a lot of materials and contents. What can you say about the role of the environment in the growth of an artist and the role of the artist in the growth of the environment?

Balogun: Well if you look at the works we have here, they are over thirty in number. The materials explored are materials that are available in my environment and that’s why each time I hear people lamenting about lack of materials I disagree totally because materials are always available; if you go to where they use firewood for cooking, you could pick charcoal and draw. So all around us there are materials to explore and experiment with; it now depends on how open you are to them because it’s one thing to look, it’s another thing to see. You might be looking and not seeing.  It’s the same thing with materials. They are there but are we actually taking advantage of them? So to me I get excited when I see these things because I always look forward to seeing them. That’s why I hardly repeat a particular show because materials keep on appearing to me and I think the onus is on me to take advantage of them. So profoundly the environment contributes to what I do in terms of the content as well as the medium because everything I use in terms of materials are things that I picked around though I buy some of them. And when it comes to the content, certainly these are things that affect me and you and I don’t think I will be genuine in my presentation if I do not reflect what is happening around me in my works. But at the same time I don’t want to be carried away with it. That is why in some of the series I talked about the issue of praises that there’s always a reason to thank God for whatever is happening to you. Even the scientists believe that there’s a superior being; regardless of your religion there’s always a superior being which you must acknowledge in whatever you achieve. So whichever way you look at it, it’s about you, your environment and what you can do with it and I think there are lot and lots that we can work with in our environments.

Mathew: Does your material direct your content or does your content direct your material?

Balogun: It’s both ways because in a creative exercise, your production could be material-led or content-led. We are having two sections in this particular presentation and some people have asked how I achieved these globular forms. I picked them like that and they actually inspired me in what I came up with because immediately I saw them I said, “Oh! these are bubbles” and I asked myself, “how do I use bubbles?” . There are some comments you hear about our present political situation and you start wondering. Take a look at what is happening recently where the northerners are giving the southerners an ultimatum to leave their region and one start to wonder if that would solve the problem. They are emotionally driven. So when it comes to my expression, the material do that and at times the content do contributes like some of the works in this show that are conceptually created; I looked for the materials that would best achieve that body of works unlike the other works that are material-led. So it’s both ways; it could be material-led and it could be content-led.

Mathew: In the context of Nigerian art what can you say about material exploration?

Balogun: Well globally, I think we are experiencing experimentation; artists now do what they want because there’s now a thin line between what we regard to as painting and sculpture. Constantly artists are motivated by industrialization where new materials emerge and are usually available for artists. Because of the fact that we are in a global village, there’s no material that you have in the west that is not here. Once they are out there, they are here. I recently heard that driverless cars are already in Nigeria. It’s always exciting to have new materials to explore and work with. I get easily bored with repeating materials because I always want to open new frontiers for exploration.

Mathew: What next should we expect from you?

Balogun: Expect surprises because the wheel is always moving.