Continuity and Change in Nsukka Art George Odoh’S Illustration of Things Fall Apart

Continuity and Change in Nsukka Art George Odoh’s Illustration of Things Fall Apart Chinedu Ene-Orji all images by George Odoh, reproduced with permission Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/52/3/48/1814033/afar_a_00481.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 he uli revivalist initiative, pioneered by Uche were employed later. Beyond this crop of artists and teachers, the Okeke in Nsukka in 1970, flourished for about practice of uli developed a transgenerational impetus among their four decades. This idea reached its peak in 1997 students and other artists who were trained in nearby institutions. when it was celebrated internationally in an ex- Drawing took on a life of its own as an autonomous mode and hibition, The Poetics of Line curated by Simon many inventive compositions resulted; artists developed recog- Ottenberg, at the National Museum of African nizably distinct styles. Art from Nsukka was at the cutting edge Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Ottenberg of the Nigerian and African creative complex. Beyond aesthetics, alsoT wrote an authoritative book about the origin and praxis of the Nsukka’s uli revivalism took on a thrust of social commitment. Uli uli artistic initiative, New Traditions from Nigeria: Seven Artists of revivalist aesthetics is on the ebb today; its motifs no longer domi- the Nsukka Group.1 Beyond this exhibition and publication and nate the Nsukka creative space, but its design concepts persist. The others that precede and postdate them, the spirit of uli has not died creative firmament in Nigeria has broadened and deepened, with completely. Like the phoenix, it has recrudescent powers. These artists engaging new initiatives. qualities are found in the works of a new generation of Nsukka art- Many hands came together to bring the contemporary uli story ists, especially in a body of illustrations of the themes of the novel into being. These artists took drawing seriously, as an independent Things Fall Apart2 (Achebe 1958) by George Odoh, a scion of the art mode. In their bid to domesticate drawing, they established uli revivalist heritage. George Odoh’s illustrations were produced specific stylistic characteristics. These were linear inventions or in 2008—forty-four years after Uche Okeke’s in 1964.3 I examine peculiar domestication of uli motifs that enabled anyone who was these illustrations in the light of the aesthetic and social fluxes su- steeped in the uli brew to identify the flavor of an artist’s work. pervening in Chinua Achebe’s fictional community of Umuofia Because these elements were effective, they developed a life of their and in Igboland and the Nsukka drawing tradition. own and were passed down the line from lecturers to students. George Odoh—who is of a very recent generation of Nsukka students, admitted in 1994—never met Uche Okeke, who retired NSUKKA DRAWING TRADITION: from Nsukka in 1986. PREDECESSORS AND LEGACIES From its ideation in 1958, through years of research, praxis, Uche Okeke’s pioneering effort at configuring contemporaryuli and distillation of its essences, Uche Okeke later grounded the was based on an investigation of Igbo cultural mores. Ogbechie uli revivalist mode of contemporary art in the Department of (2009: 133–46) problematizes Uche Okeke’s narrative of uli reviv- Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Uche alism. However, according to the artist himself, “The first thing Okeke’s campaign to Africanize Nigeria’s curriculum and ped- I did was to take the total concept of the spirit world, the world agogy started there in 1970 with the assistance of his colleagues, of man based on Igbo lore. I had to find a way of reflecting this among whom were Chike Aniakor and Chuka Amaefuna. Artists in my own work” (Ottenberg 1997: 49). His contribution, by way Obiora Udechukwu and El Anatsui and art historian Ola Oloidi of orchestrating lines, may be called biomorphic linear inven- tion. Obiora Udechukwu, who was Uche Okeke’s student, taught Odoh painting during his undergraduate program. At this point 4 Chinedu Ene-Orji is a lecturer in the Department of Fine and Applied Udechukwu had attained national and international recognition. Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He lectures on African arts, history He believes that “an analysis of Igbo drawing and painting re- of Nigerian art, and art and society. [email protected] veals that space, line, pattern, brevity, and spontaneity seem to be the pillar on which the whole tradition rests. It is these qualities 48 | african arts AUTUMN 2019 VOL. 52, NO. 3 that I strive both intuitively and intellectually to assimilate in my work” (Ottenberg 1997: 111). The sum of his linear orchestrations may be called sublime minimalism. Chike Aniakor, who taught Udechukwu and Odoh art history and painting, attributes uli’s strength to its “directness of execution, simplification, and then linear rendering of form in such a way that less is said and more is yet said.” Condensation and contour, he goes on to note, are both very important in uli (Udechukwu 1990: 60–63). Aniakor aims to compose curvilinear poetry with his drawings. While El Anatsui did not teach Odoh directly, he taught two of his lecturers, Chijioke Onuora and Chika Okeke-Agulu. He has, however, left quite an impression on Odoh and other Nsukka students and a huge body of mostly working drawings. Olu Oguibe insists Anatsui’s style of drawing had a great influence on him (Ottenberg 1997: 226). Anatsui’s drawings are characterized by ge- ometry and formal sculptural proportions.5 Similarly, Seth Anku, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/52/3/48/1814033/afar_a_00481.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 who spent about a decade at Nsukka, created many disciples who adopted his characteristic drawing style. In trying to bring a sys- tematic or scientific approach to drawing, Anku employed Socratic didacticism to his classes: “The continuous asking and answering of questions underlie the whole process of drawing” (Odoh 1998: 61). Similarly, he argued, “Drawing is a thinking process and an orchestration of marks where each mark carries its own energy” (Chikelu 1998: 17). Anku’s drawings are characterized by a combination of fluid broad strokes and linear incisions, made with compressed charcoal. Anku made a huge impression on Chijioke Onuora, who has taught drawing and sculpture for nearly two decades at Nsukka. He has said, “As a student under Seth Anku I drew with freedom, unburdened by strict mathematical methods of measurement and graphing” (Onuora 2004: 68). Onuora has developed an imprint denoted by stylized semirealism, characterized by broad, sensu- ous swathes and swirls.6 Similarly, Chika Okeke-Agulu, another of Anku’s students, developed a style of drawing informed by his skill, sensitivity, and learning as a sculptor. According to Obiora Udechukwu, who taught him, “With a few strokes, our artist is able to capture the spirit of a given situation—tenderness, pathos, tension, urgent motion—often counter-balancing pure lyrical lines with controlled patterning or linear clusters in a field still replete with breathing spaces” (Udechukwu 1992: 2–3). Chika Okeke- Agulu’s drawings display a delicate combination of corporeal mass, space, and sensitive deployment of organic lines. Nsukka faculty member C. Krydz Ikwuemesi was also Seth Anku’s student and taught George Odoh, organizing drawing workshops and art ac- tivities in which Odoh participated. While trying to underscore the relationship between a work of art and its public, Ikwuemesi asks rhetorically: “And what cannot uli paintings and drawings inspire in the course of such aesthetic interaction? After all, they have souls, they can speak; they have in them all the force which expresses the transport of the mind; they constitute a vehicle for all the fire of the artist’s passions” (1992: 38). Ikwuemesi’s drawings are an essay in linear lyricism.7 1 Unoka the Grown-up 2 Umuofia Kwenu VOL. 52, NO. 3 AUTUMN 2019 african arts | 49 Several artists from Nsukka have sought ways of extending and enlarging the uli paradigm by conjoining it with other Igbo aesthetic traditions and modes from their Nigerian and African neighbors. They have given uli an eclectic national and international flavor. Some of these aesthetic traditions are mbari, omabe, nsibidi, and adinkra. El Anatsui commenced this campaign upon his arrival to Nigeria by conjoining adinkra with uli and nsibidi. He came with adinkra in his arsenal of art methods from Ghana, in 1975 (Picton 1998: 19). Adinkra is cloth made of different printed motifs consisting of geometric designs and symbols expressing proverbs, allegory, mysticism, and history (Akatsu 2010b: 162–63). In 1977 Udechukwu began using nsibidi motifs in his works while also studying Chinese calligraphy (Okeke-Agulu 2016: 13–23). Beyond its usage by the Ekpe cult for communication, nsibidi motifs are also used on ukara cloth worn by the society’s members (Ottenberg 1997: 125–54). In the late 1970s Raymond Obeta began Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/52/3/48/1814033/afar_a_00481.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 to infuse aspects of omabe masquerade aesthetics into his orchestrations.8 He sat down with his students to draw and teach them during drawing sessions. This was novel. His paintings and drawings are a study in eclecticism: “Maybe that is why my style derives from various sources. I see beauty and aesthetics in everything. I draw inspiration from many things” (Ikwuemesi 1992: 121). Olu Oguibe introduced the conjoining of uli with mbari motifs prin- cipally and other African visual idioms. Chika Okeke, in trying to rationalize Oguibe’s decision for this visual synthesis, insists, “The problem he seems to have is that uli does not readily yield itself to the needs of an artist whose mission is to communicate literally with his audience.

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