Aindrea Emelife Instagram – Greeting the greats #DemasNwoko
Investigating the pre and post independence dreaming and thinking has been central to my research for #NigeriaImaginary – the forthcoming Nigeria Pavilion at this years Venice Biennale.
The son of a traditional ruler, Nwoko was born in 1935 in Idumuje-Ugboko, a rural town in southern Nigeria, and he cultivated his talent in painting, drawing and carving at secondary school in Benin City, where he moved in 1951.
Nwoko and fellow students, including Yusuf Grillo, Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Simon Okeke, to create the Zaria Art Society. They promoted the idea of ‘natural synthesis’, combining their Western art education with African ideas. Later, the group became popularly known as the ‘Zaria Rebels’.
They went on to establish spaces such as the Mbari Writers and Artists Club, developing a new art that blended African and Western modernist aesthetics, forms and processes to reflect the spirit of political independence.
‘there were a few of us saying that the new should grow out of the old, while the rest were swept [away] with modernisation.’ | Posted on 02/Feb/2024 15:47:03
