By
Okechukwu Nwafor
Jimmy
Nwanne’s works are eloquent testimonies to the crises that have befallen the entire
human race. While his Diaspora sojourn may have promised a better living
condition in far away Germany, his preoccupation with likely socio-economic
issues in Nigeria is revealing of his passion to become a willing participant
in a world torn apart by economic exploitation, political oppression and
cultural degradation.
The works,
“Behind these walls” and “Lady with the veil” rendered in a somewhat realistic
manner, make multiple statements about the world’s current threat. Whether they
make remote allusion to the Middle East political crisis or a direct reference
to the current threat posed by Boko Haram in the North East of Nigeria, Nwanne’s
homeland, one can suggest that Nwanne has reconstructed the idea of ‘veils’
into a political battle for survival. While the works can serve as metaphors
for an explicit critique of religion in a nation beleaguered by the tragedy of
fundamentalism, the veiling could also suggest the silencing of dehumanised
victims, whose narratives offer us an opportunity to revisit other dimensions
of violence against women. In these
works, Nwanne seems to romanticise marginal life through a deft overlay of sombre
colours, misty eyes and an aura of mystique around each physiognomic gaze. In
both paintings the faces are broken into geometric shapes of colour, punctuated
by interplay of silhouetted imageries built into the vertical veils. Both the faces and the veils offer unending
perspectives to a world of seemingly uneven topography; a battered landscape
that defines our everydayness.
In the
‘Nation building Series’ Nwanne seems to accentuate the institutional constraints
to thriving in Nigeria. He underscores the necessary ingredients needed to articulate
new kinds of orientations towards nation building. These orientations suggest
that nation building embodies two fundamental organs: the child and education.
The pernicious effect of lack, of poverty, of deprivation can be substantially
alleviated through proper investment in educating the child. If as the paradox
goes that the child is father to the man, then Nwanne’s propositions are not
merely idealizations but surely intend to resolve possible dangers of social
and economic insecurity which an uneducated child may pose in the future. In
‘Nation Building II and III’, patches of colours progress in blocks of dark and
bright hues around the entire figure. However, while the pencils and papers are
highlighted, other figural elements are diminished. This may be for strategic
reasons. On the other hand, the traditional ideal of classical beauty
represented by the child figure points out the successful modernity of Nwanne’s
style: strong extravagant colours signal Nwanne’s break with the radical
conceptualism of the twenty first century. These works are strongly evocative
of the emotional reality Nwanne has always been truthful to right from his
student days at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Nwanne never shed his
cultural specificity, despite the overarching influence of politics of
difference in the West where he has been living and working. Not interested to
transcend the questions posed by ‘Diaspora belongingness’ Nwanne pictured home
as a constant site of return. He saw ‘home’ as a place where his creativity
would make loud statements of sincerity and peace.
Perhaps,
for Nwanne, the thought of home must have inspired the work “to the promise land’
where he seems to make audacious attempt to preserve his agency and increase
the scope of his freedom. This work is very successful in the manner in which
balance and harmony are blended into a cool ambience of movement. If Nwanne
desired home so much as to return to Nigeria to show his new works, then time
has come, according to West (1994:22), “for artists of the new cultural
politics of difference to cast their nets widely, flex their muscles broadly,
and thereby refuse to limit their visions, analyses, and praxis to their
particular terrains. The aim is to dare to recast, redefine, and revise the
very notions of... the mainstream”. Perhaps, Nwanne has revised this notion of ‘the
mainstream’ to arrive at ‘the periphery’ thus reaching a new stage in his
constant search for freedom. This freedom enabled Nwanne to return to Nigeria and
open his creative vista to his own people.
References
Cornel
West (1994). “The New Cultural Politics of Difference” in Maurice Berger, Modern Art and Society, An Anthology of
Social and Multicultural Readings.
New York: IconEditions.
Okechukwu Nwafor
holds a PhD in Visual History from the University of the Western Cape, Cape
Town, South Africa. He was a former Research Associate in the Interdisciplinary
Centre for the Study of Global Change (ICGC), University of Minnesota, USA. He
is currently the Head, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe
University, Awka, Anambra State. Email: penncils@yahoo.com
Behind these wall. Oil on canvas.
Nation Building II. Oil on canvas.
To the promise land. Oil on canvas.
Despair. Oil on canvas.
