By Chinezim Moghalu
“It is a visual information about
the struggles to survive, missions of making marks and the eventual probable
failure and success of the foreigners abroad.”
- Monsur Awotunde, (Nihin Lohun Catalogue 2017)
August 13-17, 2017, witnessed “Nihin Lohun (Here and There)”, a solo
art exhibition by Awotunde Monsur, at Rele Art Gallery, 5 Military street,
Onikan, Lagos, Nigeria.
The exhibition was a sojourner’s
narrative which ushered manifestations of the artist’s lived experiences within
a decade of shared occupancy between his native Nigeria and United Kingdom. A
visual essay and compendium about the fleetingly sheer, ambiguous and arbitrary
happenings encountered upon his immigration- and reflection of the eclectic and
complex moments within “there” and “here”. The four day event afforded one an
encounter with subtle, yet forcefully compelling paintings that highlighted the
artist’s commentary.
Within the context of the
exhibition, Awotunde presented aficionados with acrylics based iconic pieces; a
culmination of exceptionally conceptual reportage of fragments of displacement-
which is mixed with dissimulations and thrust of filtering usually experienced
in a third world nation such as his. Here, the artist demonstrates the
experiences witnessed in his academic migration to UK, and the ones encountered
upon return to his native Nigeria. He hence ushered one into that enclave of
rarely visualized and depicted scenario.
The constellation of paintings,
depict and addresses visual testaments of migration chronicles- via an artist’s
vantage- evidenced by frenzied brush strokes in abstract-expressionist
rendition that shares a binary between fantasy and simulacra; and pays homage
to Monsur’s academic tutelage in United Kingdom. His oeuvre employs abstraction
ahead of representation, as abstraction becomes requisite in visual reportage
and depiction of the ambivalent fragments that accompany the sort of
experiences he witnessed during such going-and-coming. For example, through
paintings such as Temporary Resident and
Not in this Land, Awotunde highlights
the present temporality offered to migrants by the UK government and the
inextricable success or failure that makes up such sojourn.
 |
Nile yiko (Not in this
Land), 2016.
Acrylics on canvas, 56 X 64inches
|
Cost of Comfort accentuates the extra financial expenses one is
compelled to make when one needs a certain comfort in a decadent Nigeria. It
majorly chronicles power supply that ought to be the government’s
responsibility; instead, one ends up catering for such
through acquisition of generators, solar power energies, and more pertinently,
inverters that require charging. Such power strife was an activity witnessed by
the artist before migrating to UK, and upon return to his nation, Nigeria.
 |
Cost of Comfort, 2017, 36 x 30inches
|
The artist, through the
exhibition catalogue, denotes a key anecdote that states thus: “My
personal experiences, those of other migrants during my stay in United Kingdom
and other political lapses present here at home all make visual compendium for
this show. It is a visual information about the struggles to survive, missions
of making marks, and the eventual probable failure and success of the
foreigners abroad”.
With regards to his experience,
especially that of his native Nigeria, Awotunde affords us a spectacle into
demonstrations of the troubling, ‘dark’ inertia state of his mind when
illustrating such arbitrary narratives. Metaphorically represented mostly in
fragments of broken blackish and greyish brushstrokes upon neutral whitish
background, one is forcefully initiated, via highlighted portions, to share in
the pluralities of these complex ambivalences- also to share in his innate
expressionist musings.
Monsur, through this body of
work, becomes a social commentator in interrogating some of the turbulences
plaguing his native Nigeria. He would assert:
“…the issues of steady electricity
supply, good water and reliable roads, to name a few as basic amenities, and
prompt payment of civil servants’ salaries in an ideal society unfortunately
still remain our own worries here at this contemporary age.”
“In a place like Lokoja, where there is abundant flow of water and very
hot sun, in my opinion, more financial sacrifice by the government to treat and
circulate the water to the public; and covert the scorching sun to solar power
would do us an alternative to National Electricity Supply that has remained a
major problem for ages”. These observations are visually highlighted in
this exhibition.
The identity formed in certain
spaces or territories; possession and the generosity of unacquainted spaces- hugely
for a time being and stipulated duration, as evidenced by Monsur via obscure
realities in his migrant sojourn to post-Victorian Britain are aptly questioned
in the collection. It was purposively created in two separate geographical
locations, Lokoja, Nigeria and Luton, UK. The both nations link and reference
each other.
 |
Temporary Resident, 2017, 19.5 x 19.5inches
|
Born in Igbo Ora, Oyo, Nigeria,
Monsur Awotunde is a visual artist and communication practitioner. He had an
initial art and design apprenticeship under Shamseen Adagunduro and Olusesan
Adebayo in Lagos before proceeding to the Polytechnic Ibadan for formal art
education, where he practiced at the Ara studio under the virtuoso, Mufu Onifade.
He would eventually study and enroll at Auchi School of Art and Design, Edo
state and University of Bedfordshire, Luton, United Kingdom. The latter would
usher in an international artistic visibility.
Presently, he teaches drawing and
painting at School of Art and Design, Kogi state Polytechnic, Lokoja, Nigeria.
Among his selected exhibitions are: Outside Arts, Candid Arts Gallery, London,
2016; Fake Book, Yellow Space, Bedfordshire
University, UK, 2013; NihinLohun, Rele
Gallery, Lagos, 2017.
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