And Ndidi finally steps out
Tapestry of LIfe has finally birthed. Three years after Ndidi dreamt it up.
It had started in 2004, when the stromg woman of Nigeria;s visual art called me up to inform that she had compiled a set of paintings and was desirous on showing them. Ndidi paints!!!!! It sounded like a song from the deep blues. What happened to the woods? So i jetted out on a Sunday evening -- to see the wonders that my favourite artist had cooked . And there i was in her beautiful home on the Island esconced in dreams that had taken her 20 years to dream up. the rest is in the essay below.
Ndidi 2004: Transgressing The Typecast
BY JAHMAN ANIKULAPO
The most constant tribute paid to Ndidi Dike’s artistic odyssey is a perceived fidelity to her cultural foundation. That she is faithful, almost to the point of fanaticism, to the projection, promotion and preservation of the essences of African culture. The assessment is right only to the extent that the themes in her work are drawn from her cultural environment; and that she engages a wealth of motifs and symbols from the diverse cultural experiences of Africa.
Particularly tricky in this kind of definitive placement of the artist's oeuvre, however, is an inherent danger of undermining a more rounded, and expansive assessment of Ndidi's potentials as a creative artist, with a precocious touch of ingenuousness. The contentention does not allow for the artist to be critiqued beyond the pictures she presents at exhibition sites. It overshadows the enormous adventures she processes in her studios and as well as in her studies of forms and techniques.
And Ndidi, since her appearance on the Nigeria exhibition circuit -- Mixed Media Expose (Owerri 1986) -- has been a victim of strait-jacketing; or 'stuck' branding. She was variously concluded as a 'transgressor' who subverts set codes of art practice. One such magisterial evaluation, which the art manager, Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, has tackled effectively, is the statement that Ndidi's assertive professional candour suggests a "transgressive vision subverting the power of masculinity".
Another critique suggests that Ndidi courts a 'militant feminism', which ludicrously implies it is an aberration for a woman to be assertive in vision and contention; or (as in this case) authoritative in her professional conviction; or that militancy is a preserve of the male. Much of these assertions are rooted in the overt paternalistic nature of the African society.
However, the direct reference to Ndidi's abrasive (?) stance in the Nigerian art site, has its origin more in the phenomenon of 'that young lady' coming fresh to the scene (almost from the classroom), and peddling influences with, first, the male who dominated (and still dominate) the art scene; and again, challenging certain settled convictions about the god-ness (or inviolability, or un-questionability) of the work and reputation of some of the most influential and competent artists of the time.
Recall that her first show -- Explorations into Nature (a month long outing in July, 1987 at the Goethe Institut, Lagos) was one of the very few very first shows by a young and unknown artist (and a female!) to be widely celebrated in the media; and to capture the attention of collectors in then hyperactive and boisterous Lagos art scene.
Notably however, most of the reviews of that debut had to do with the poser: 'who is this girl?' Some other critiques started, even at that early age, to read her work as being imitative of some other older artists' or some over-exploited Western stylistic traditions.
Thus the outset of her career, Ndidi spent trying to prove that she had not even encountered the work of most of the elders she was perceived to have imitated.
But this was just the beginning of her subtle battle to assert her reputation as an artist with personal cognitive character, self-dreams and authentic creative prowess.
And even after so many years of distinguished performances in the exhibition circuit, some quite astonishing indeed, Ndidi still, is having to explain that she had not started out imitating the much older Ghanaian artist, El-Anatsui, who was a teacher at the University of Nsukka at the time Ndidi was studying painting. This contention of creative affinity between the two has become seemingly cast in stone, that even long after El-Anatsui himself had, many times and in public forums, declaimed Ndidi's debt to his sculptural kingdom, a certain section of the visual art observers has remained stuck in that entrenched perception.
Intriguingly, the perception is more assertive among Ndidi's fellow artists. It manifested even as recent as last year when Ndidi with five other artists, participated in a group show -- Africa Passage -- at the Air Gallery in London. There the debate shifted from the brilliant collection of sculptures by the only female participant in that epochal show, to the so-called affinity with el-Anatsui; and as well, a perceived transgression of certain professional boundaries already erected for her.
IN contrast to these set views however, Ndidi is a dynamic subject as an artist. The wood sculpture and mixed media enterprises may have remained constant for her almost two decades of presence on the exhibition circuit, she has always stepped on to newer dreams and adventures. These much have been proved not just by her work but in consistent studies conducted by such reputable art historians/critics as Dele Jegede, Nkiru Nzeagwu and Sylvester Ogbechie among others.
IN artistic vision, Ndidi is very cosmopolitan and expressly contemporaneous. And this manifests too in the style and technique she deploys in accomplishing her work. True, she likes to stress the African-ness of her artistic contention; she does not deny too that her ambition is to be a world artist, but who operates from the continent of Africa. In her preparation for the Air Gallery show, early referenced, she said:
"I don't like myself being called an African Artist, I have always stressed that it is circumstance of location and well, history, that I am operating from Africa. I am proud to be an African, of course, but I am not an 'African Artist' in the way the western critics like to describe artists working from the continent. It is mischievous; it’s meant to be derogatory; to put you below the worst of their artists".
And earlier in her Artist testimony to her 2000 show -- Textual Dialogue on Wood -- Ndidi had stated:
"Curators and art collectors seem to have long decided what authentic African art is and who its practitioners are. And they seem to believe that only those work with tribal, primitive and mythical features and, are of ethnographic and anthropological values qualify to pass as genuine African art".
Though she has a missionary zeal to the proper placement of African art in the discourse on global contemporary art, Ndidi rejects both in concept and reference the term 'African Artist'. Her work in terms of stylistic exploit, technical framework and thematic exploration is even more candid about non-conformity to this stereotypical definition. By the nature of her work, Ndidi is universal and contemporaneous.
She places her self in the class of
"highly trained artists of Africa
extraction (who) practise contemporary African art, using among others, techniques borrowed from elsewhere to work on elements garnered from his or her vast cultural heritage. This does not amount to a dilution of authenticity but sheer cultural dynamism, all the more so in an era defined by forces of globalization.
(Excess Baggage… 2000).
ANOTHER tribute, which is contentious and obviously over-stretched in most evaluations of Ndidi's work, is her total allegiance to the sculpture medium. There had even been the suggestion that the wood panel was becoming a formula; may be a trademark. As a matter of fact, she has stayed stuck to the medium for at least 19 years. And for most critics and observers of the Nigerian art scene, especially those whose careers flowered in the late 80s of the so-called 'boom' in the visual arts sector, they have never known Ndidi to do any other work outside sculpting on the wood panels and the ubiquitous mixed media predilection. Her signature to them, is the flat surface wood with tiny figures and signs as decorations.
And Ndidi too might have helped to protract the myth by her deep affection for the wood panel. Perhaps it was only once in that period that she attempted to shock her observers, with (in style and form) adventurous testimonial in Totems and Signposts (Goethe Institut; 2002), when she yanked her rich tapestry of figures, images, signs and symbols from their permanent site on the sculptural relief, and pasted them (still generously) on the body of standing woods -- pillars, totems, and posts.
And refreshing as this new song was, it only excited a few.
YET, Ndidi has always been convinced she has more to offer. That she could resource grave dynamics in her creative enterprise and, pilot her viewers to the other dimensions of her talent, skill and artistic contentions.
"I believe that the beauty of a creative person is the freedom to create as you will. I shouldn't be forced to do works or engage in creativity that I am not deeply inspired to do. When I have a statement to make, I say it the way I am motivated by my inner desire, my convictions to do it. I wanted all these years to work on wood, and that was what I was doing. But those who know my story know that I have always painted like every other trained painter; only that I painted on wood. And I may decide to paint on cloth; on car; on your body. It depends on what I feel like doing".
Show after show, Ndidi has, in truth, shown that she had other dimensions to her artistic enterprise that had not been allowed to flower; or had been deliberately encouraged to rest in her huge cauldron of experiences and encounters with the dynamics of art practices from other parts of the world.
•Ndidi with fellow artists at a Uli workshop in Austria
BUT why is Ndidi painting now; in this show? A boredom with wood? Fed up with sculpture?
No, I’m not bored with wood at all.
Are you sure?
Yeah! I’m very sure
But you haven’t worked on canvas or board for so many years?
No, I have not! In fact, not for
years now. That’s exactly the way it is. But as an artist, you have a feeling to try new things.
And you’re not reacting to some people saying why doesn’t she paint anymore?
I’m a very free spirit. I do what I feel inside. I don’t think there’s any outside influence in all I have done so far in my career. That has never moved me. I’m somebody that if you give me metal, I could work with metal, and if you give me clay I could work with clay; so long I find a medium with which I feel I can express myself.
Twenty years is a landmark in the career of any artist; and now Ndidi, reputed for her woodwork, is going back to painting, where she started from…
Yes.
Isn’t there some other motive for going back to painting?
I feel within myself… I’m somebody who is always willing to add something new. If you look at my very first exhibition, that should be 1986, there were paintings, mixed media, wood works; and after that, I stepped down painting on canvas and concentrated on woodwork. My show in 1987 was mainly sculptures. I found something deeply motivating in the wood; I fell in love with the texture of wood; the language of the wood; the different grades…and I thought I had so much to say with the wood; and that there was much the wood could enable me to say that other mediums may not allow me to say as I wanted to say those things.
That was it.
I am not defending myself. And I didn’t think because I haven’t painted a long time, I should start painting. It’s just exactly how I feel. As I said, there’s no outside influence. It’s just the way I feel as an artist. That’s all. That’s what I feel.
But when did the urge for the canvas hit you?
I’ve been thinking for quite some time… you know, when you’re working, there’s something behind your mind like the theme you want to use or the medium… this is like a reflection of that. I mean I kept saying I wanted to paint on canvas and I never did. But for some reasons in June this year (2004), I just started.
Sure, you’re not trying to say that in 20 years, there were so many things you wanted to say, which the wood medium did not allow you to say? And you thought probably painting would be the appropriate medium…?
I didn’t say that but I felt I wanted something new. I wanted something different from what I was doing before. I just had this new ideas and I felt to say it in a fresh medium;in a fresh mode…
What do you think of those who have been used to your wood...? Have you asked from them what they think of you changing your medium? I have an impression that some of your collectors might be puzzled: why is she painting?
Yeah! You are right. That’s exactly one of the things that came to my mind when I started painting: ‘why is she painting now?’ ‘What has happened to her?’ And as you said: ‘is she tired of woods?’
For me, it is a continued process. As an artist in terms of your creative development, any media you think or feel comfortable with, you can work with. Remember that traditionally, I was a painter and my very early expressions were mixed media before I went to painting, to sculpture and now back to painting. So painting has been my work all these years anyway. I had been painting on wood. I just decided to do it on canvas this time around. So for the collectors, I’m just hoping everybody will feel ‘this is great!’ ‘She is expanding her media’; and that ‘she has raised the bar’.
Yeah, you have been painting on wood, but would you agree that your colour scheme became so vibrant and touching when you brought it out on the canvas? Hasn’t something happened around your creative life?
These things go on in your sub-consciousness. I’ve always liked earth colours — gloss yellow, ochre… colours that have to do with the nature of the earth. So, for me, this is an exhibition of my sub-conscious in terms of the colour scheme I want to use. It’s something I might not really have an explanation for. It just happens when I start painting. I want the colour to be perfect”.
NOT even Ndidi is certain about the future of the latest romance with the canvas. At best, she says ‘all I know is as long as I have things to say and I feel the canvas will enable me to communicate my desires, my artistic intention without inhibitions, I shall go ahead with it”.
But the passion with which she explains her new engagement with the medium, the future may be unmistakable. A major shift in Ndidi’s career, as it happened in the 1987 show in which she stepped into the sculptural field may be replayed. And that may be determined, even if unannounced, by the response of the critical art circuit to the current body of works.
INTERESTINGLY, the works in the current exhibition also show in creative substance the fact that Ndidi’s artistic oeuvre may have undergone a paradigm shift. The canvas has opened a new vista in her approach to theme and stylistic renditions.
In composition, there is a more liberal and space-conscious Ndidi emerging, with a more relaxed application of design motifs.
Unlike the woodwork, the canvases are like wide, open fields accommodative of visual silence and coded imageries, which appear like poetic fairies in the moor of a fictional narrative. The hard surface of the wood, perhaps, would have been less accommodating of the adventurous experimentation with strokes, lines and colour cadences that Ndidi imbued the faces of her canvases with.
****
A Painting Odyssey 1976-2004
INSTRUCTIVELY, Ndidi’s first painting -- Mother and Child (mixed media; 1976) -- had predicted that sculpture might eventually be her favoured medium. The painting appeared almost like a relief sculpture. The figures appeared like pieces of strewn woods planted on the surface of the canvas; though they were no where near the wood panel dimension, which she was later to engage in her sculpture career. She said this painting was inspired by a bead painting by Jimoh Buraimoh, which made a lasting impression on her then as a dreamy, adventurous student of art.
Another work done in 1977, Evil Spirits Converge (mixed media), shared of the sculptural design and eclectic compositional motif. But compared to her later works after graduation in painting, they lacked sophistication of thematic vision and definitive stylistic direction.
But that is expected.
What was unexpected was the dimension to which she was to stretch colour scheme as well as the intensity of her emotions about life, which she also expressed in an outpour of strokes and sometimes robust brush movements.
Perhaps it is a manifestation of the newer experiences and influences she had acquired in the course of her training at the Nsukka School of Art, where the uli decorative concept was a foundational principle.
1983-1985:
THE uli as usually expected from the work of most graduates of the Fine Arts department of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, (UNN) did reflect in Ndidi’s works while studying. In the first instance, there was less emotion in her thematic engagement. She stepped deeper into the realm of abstraction, which had earlier manifested in her works of the1970s, even if she placed greater emphasis on design and colours. Works she accomplished in this period included The Dance, (1984) -- where bold and assertive drawing that had been prominent in her earlier works of the 70s thinned out in detailing. But then she masterfully deployed lines and effusive brush motions to capture the rhythms.
Another painting simply titled Still Life, bears testimony to her impatience with painting as a medium that could effectively bear her evocative testament. It could have been a simple picture of a woman regal in her native wears, but around the face, Ndidi splashed generous paints, which seemed to obliterate the features -- not to any negative effect though. Also, she used colour to create movements of her wrapper such that the still life looks more like an undecided realistic painting.
Even at that, it may not necessarily be impatience with drawing that reduced the detail in her work of this time, but a deliberate experimentation with attributes of forms. A school assignment at the time merely shows a parade of colours in brush strokes, there is no figure visible in the work. But intriguingly, this work in composition and design motifs bears semblance to her very first painting in 1976, Mother and Child.
Another painting in her NYSC year in 1984 juggles the form of the figures, playing with elongation, and distortion but without losing its design appeals.
From this time, Ndidi’s painting style became more assertive in compositional and design concepts. She also grew more experimental in shapes, forms and stylistic approach to the grossly flexible painting medium.
1986 – 1987:
IN her initial paintings in the period 1986 to 1987, Ndidi’s concern was more a predilection for swift design motives, which though rich in concept did not necessarily attempt to explicate the theme. The concern appeared a propensity to use colour to achieve the maximum evocative effect; to lure the viewer to the hideous testimonies of the painting.
There was also the seeming obsession with earthiness — earthly colours -- which appeal to the peaceful recesses of the thought process coupled with a, perhaps, deliberate attempt for definitive figuring but metaphysical use of symbols and signs. Interestingly, this is also borne by the themes, which are not necessarily critically engaging in any form. Perhaps also, there was some exuberance in the choice of theme; albeit the artist was contented with merely celebrating life and the joy of living and loving.
She painted with passion to unearth the poetry buried in her subconscious. Perhaps, it had to do with age, but even as competent as the paintings were in composition and colour schemes, it was the romantic that was reflected in Sunset in Harmattan and Nshiko (Crab) (mixed media -- shells, collared beads, enamel paints) — among the numerous works done in that immediate post-graduation period.
Even when she took on social commentary, the authorial intention is overwhelmed (or nearly outdone) by the design aesthetics — as manifested in Austerity (Hard Times) (mixed media -- painted dry mini pot beads, black beads, glass) (1986) — without negating the pains and anguish unleashed on the poor and the masses by the General Ibrahim Babangida military regime of that International Monetary Fund/Structural Adjustment Policy era.
Illegal Aliens (1983) and Family Exodus (1986) are didactic in themes too, and reflective of the dislocations occasioned by the new West-authored economic policy of the federal government. But the enormity of the tragedy was subdued in the rather romantic colour scheme.
A Return to Roots
AND now that Ndidi Dike has returned to painting after almost twenty years of a deeply engaging affection for the wood, it appears she never really left. Certain modules have changed especially in terms of design concepts and maturity of composition as well as colour schemes, but it is still the essential Ndidi: with elegant brush strokes, a confident engagement of the surface of the canvas and an evocative rendition of the particular thematic concern.
Why the return to painting?
I just feel like changing. I felt like painting. As an artist, I don't like to be stuck to one way of saying what I wanted to say. I work according to how I am directed by my Muse. My Muse said I should paint, so picked up my brush and I painted. I have always painted anyway on my wood; only now I am painting on another material, the canvas."
She sounded ever so convincing in this testimony.
2004: Deconstructing the stereotype
Picking up her brush again, after 19 years of intense romance with the wood, during which she twisted the hard wood panel into sometimes incredible rhythms and motions, Ndidi’s paintings affirmed that she never really left painting. She seemed to have merely shifted her affection to the succulent canvas; away from the wood panel. She may appear less adventurous with composition and form, her affective sense of design and colour schemes remain vibrant and wealthy in contentions.
Though the canvas comes out bigger and more prosperous, it is leaner in volume of figures and design motives. There is an engagement with the minimalist tradition. In most part, the board is left bare, providing a calming effect in the viewers who must have been accustomed to Ndidi’s usually boisterous statement (and sometimes seemingly overstatement) on the wood panels.
Why the reduction in the board’s content?
I don't think it was a deliberate thing. I think I just wanted to allow the colour to dominate the surface of the canvas. I wanted to play around with space. There is power in emptiness, you know; just like there is intensity in silence. I wanted the painting to breath. Maybe that is the only deliberate thing about it all.
Ndidi must have resolved on a leaner, simpler but efficient compositional devices that reflect more her fermenting handling of concepts and materials. She is satisfied with less; though saying more with the intensity of colour and the empty spaces. Indeed, there is more being said in those parts of the board or canvass where the artist appeared to have forgotten to add yet another figure or signs the way she is wont to do in her sculpture.
To the artist however, those untouched spaces, which are nonetheless doused in generous earthy colour are the real sacrosanct site for dialogue with the viewers' inner feelings and sensibilities.
The obsession is more with creating strong visual symbolism through a subtle movement of the brush stroke and a play with light and shades, heavy and thin, positive and negative geometrical signs --- a tendency toward dualism of experience. In this dialogue between diametrically opposing forms and symbols, the artist drags the viewer into a dialogue with her thematic and stylistic contentions. Why for instance, would she leave a large site of the canvas unfulfilled of her definitive symbols and signs, which interpolates between the textual and textural forms, according to the art historian, Syl Ogbechie? By the play on dual formational and thematic concepts, she also lures the viewer beyond the physical images on the canvas into the inner convictions of the artists; her contemplation; her buried conclusions about life’s various conflicting signals. In this dialogue, the viewer finds himself more engaged with the philosophy behind the simple images swimming in an ocean of still primarily earth and basic colours as in The Leopard In My Thought and Colours in My Universe (both acrylic and acrylic pen), which she suggests could be viewed together as two sides of a statement that captures the artist’s resolve on the contradictions in contemporary politics; something like an escape into the beauty within the artist’s inner recesses.
Yet in these works as in the others in this series including Uli Dreamscape, which recourses to design modules of the women exponents of the traditional uli art of wall and body decorations, the rich design motifs remain ever poignant and potent; even in their simple but elegant reign in the corners of the canvas.
Yet Ndidi strikes a familiar sculptural chord in Contemporary Textures and Feelings, which though a painting re-present all the attributes of her wood panel work. Of course, the mixed media dimension -- though a combination of acrylic, jute rope, camel bone and fabric -- already places the work in a context that is beyond a simple painting.
This attribute, seen more in her design motive and composition, would be found in many of the other works in this collection. Placed side by side her sculptures – Political Chess (ebony wood, brass heads), which also done in 2004, might be parts of the current show -- Contemporary Textures and Feelings appears as a wood panel sculpture planted on the face of a canvas.
Significantly however, the painting (and some of Ndidi’s recent wood works) signify perhaps a stylistic shift… a gentler, simpler, empathetic ‘attack’ on the surface of the wood or the canvas. Maybe a personal resolve by the artist that ‘Easy is life, Simple is Beauty; Simple is Richer; Less is More'.
Did she find boredom somewhere along the line in her two decades of professional practice: "No way. I am never bored; not with my art; or any aspect of my practice".
But even this period or era (of seeming significant shift in professional paradigm) is transitory for Ndidi. There is a palpable unpredictability of formalistic contentions in some of her works. Her embrace of the ‘less-is-more’ tradition for instance, is not as formulaic as the work of some other artists of her generation, who of recent had taken the minimalist path, perhaps due more to pressures of tastes and preferences from their Western collectors and patrons. Ndidi would not, for instance, flood the canvas with loud red or orange and proceed to drop one innocuous caricature in the middle or a corner as are prevalent in many works in the gallery circuit of Lagos. She endows her site with meaningful symbols and signs, usually tapped from her rich reservoir of textile design motifs, Efik nsibidi and uli symbols among other resources.
Maybe Ndidi’s advantage albeit differential from her fellow new ‘minimalists’, is her mastery of the apparently difficult wood medium. Her competence in composition and arrangement of colour as well as sophistication in the more technical deployment of non-visual communicative devices such as mood, tones, cadences and variations comes out more manifestly on the surface of the canvas.
Tapestry of Life (acrylic, camel bone and pen), Creating My Own Fabric (acrylic) relish colours as resources of inestimable values in composition and design exercises. The tonal cadences achieved with these two schematic aides of the artist are rare virtues in most paintings in the exhibition circuit. Indigo Dreams II tends to stretch the artist’s comprehension of the untapped natural resources and essences of colour in composition even further. Here, Ndidi simply runs her brush in simple strokes of divergent colours across the surface of the board and then engraves her signature -- the little symbols and figures on the lines, sometimes at unexpected corners, without obstructing the contribution of the mixed media component – acrylic, mud cloth, beads, acrylic pen
Uli Cityscape (acrylic, jute rope, and acrylic pen) may have been inspired by the same Muse bug that propelled the birth of Indigo Dreams but in terms of colour and designs motifs, it differs. Here, the emphasis is on the untouched half of the canvas that is just plain, passive but pensive in its relationship to the other half with a wealth of brush strokes and a suggested landscape.
Again, Ndidi’s qualitative deployment of these schemes may be the fact that she is essentially a compulsive designer with a wide appetite for creating beauty and atmospheric aesthetics.
This intercourse of her mastery of the sculpture medium following 19 years of intense romance with the wood and textile ingredients and her long ‘caged’ painterly competence in the deployment of colour and compositional design motifs, is what is being celebrated in the current outing. But importantly, it signals the opening of yet another chapter in a career that is creatively effusive and adventurous in vision and conception.
It had started in 2004, when the stromg woman of Nigeria;s visual art called me up to inform that she had compiled a set of paintings and was desirous on showing them. Ndidi paints!!!!! It sounded like a song from the deep blues. What happened to the woods? So i jetted out on a Sunday evening -- to see the wonders that my favourite artist had cooked . And there i was in her beautiful home on the Island esconced in dreams that had taken her 20 years to dream up. the rest is in the essay below.
Ndidi 2004: Transgressing The Typecast
BY JAHMAN ANIKULAPO
The most constant tribute paid to Ndidi Dike’s artistic odyssey is a perceived fidelity to her cultural foundation. That she is faithful, almost to the point of fanaticism, to the projection, promotion and preservation of the essences of African culture. The assessment is right only to the extent that the themes in her work are drawn from her cultural environment; and that she engages a wealth of motifs and symbols from the diverse cultural experiences of Africa.
Particularly tricky in this kind of definitive placement of the artist's oeuvre, however, is an inherent danger of undermining a more rounded, and expansive assessment of Ndidi's potentials as a creative artist, with a precocious touch of ingenuousness. The contentention does not allow for the artist to be critiqued beyond the pictures she presents at exhibition sites. It overshadows the enormous adventures she processes in her studios and as well as in her studies of forms and techniques.
And Ndidi, since her appearance on the Nigeria exhibition circuit -- Mixed Media Expose (Owerri 1986) -- has been a victim of strait-jacketing; or 'stuck' branding. She was variously concluded as a 'transgressor' who subverts set codes of art practice. One such magisterial evaluation, which the art manager, Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, has tackled effectively, is the statement that Ndidi's assertive professional candour suggests a "transgressive vision subverting the power of masculinity".
Another critique suggests that Ndidi courts a 'militant feminism', which ludicrously implies it is an aberration for a woman to be assertive in vision and contention; or (as in this case) authoritative in her professional conviction; or that militancy is a preserve of the male. Much of these assertions are rooted in the overt paternalistic nature of the African society.
However, the direct reference to Ndidi's abrasive (?) stance in the Nigerian art site, has its origin more in the phenomenon of 'that young lady' coming fresh to the scene (almost from the classroom), and peddling influences with, first, the male who dominated (and still dominate) the art scene; and again, challenging certain settled convictions about the god-ness (or inviolability, or un-questionability) of the work and reputation of some of the most influential and competent artists of the time.
Recall that her first show -- Explorations into Nature (a month long outing in July, 1987 at the Goethe Institut, Lagos) was one of the very few very first shows by a young and unknown artist (and a female!) to be widely celebrated in the media; and to capture the attention of collectors in then hyperactive and boisterous Lagos art scene.
Notably however, most of the reviews of that debut had to do with the poser: 'who is this girl?' Some other critiques started, even at that early age, to read her work as being imitative of some other older artists' or some over-exploited Western stylistic traditions.
Thus the outset of her career, Ndidi spent trying to prove that she had not even encountered the work of most of the elders she was perceived to have imitated.
But this was just the beginning of her subtle battle to assert her reputation as an artist with personal cognitive character, self-dreams and authentic creative prowess.
And even after so many years of distinguished performances in the exhibition circuit, some quite astonishing indeed, Ndidi still, is having to explain that she had not started out imitating the much older Ghanaian artist, El-Anatsui, who was a teacher at the University of Nsukka at the time Ndidi was studying painting. This contention of creative affinity between the two has become seemingly cast in stone, that even long after El-Anatsui himself had, many times and in public forums, declaimed Ndidi's debt to his sculptural kingdom, a certain section of the visual art observers has remained stuck in that entrenched perception.
Intriguingly, the perception is more assertive among Ndidi's fellow artists. It manifested even as recent as last year when Ndidi with five other artists, participated in a group show -- Africa Passage -- at the Air Gallery in London. There the debate shifted from the brilliant collection of sculptures by the only female participant in that epochal show, to the so-called affinity with el-Anatsui; and as well, a perceived transgression of certain professional boundaries already erected for her.
IN contrast to these set views however, Ndidi is a dynamic subject as an artist. The wood sculpture and mixed media enterprises may have remained constant for her almost two decades of presence on the exhibition circuit, she has always stepped on to newer dreams and adventures. These much have been proved not just by her work but in consistent studies conducted by such reputable art historians/critics as Dele Jegede, Nkiru Nzeagwu and Sylvester Ogbechie among others.
IN artistic vision, Ndidi is very cosmopolitan and expressly contemporaneous. And this manifests too in the style and technique she deploys in accomplishing her work. True, she likes to stress the African-ness of her artistic contention; she does not deny too that her ambition is to be a world artist, but who operates from the continent of Africa. In her preparation for the Air Gallery show, early referenced, she said:
"I don't like myself being called an African Artist, I have always stressed that it is circumstance of location and well, history, that I am operating from Africa. I am proud to be an African, of course, but I am not an 'African Artist' in the way the western critics like to describe artists working from the continent. It is mischievous; it’s meant to be derogatory; to put you below the worst of their artists".
And earlier in her Artist testimony to her 2000 show -- Textual Dialogue on Wood -- Ndidi had stated:
"Curators and art collectors seem to have long decided what authentic African art is and who its practitioners are. And they seem to believe that only those work with tribal, primitive and mythical features and, are of ethnographic and anthropological values qualify to pass as genuine African art".
Though she has a missionary zeal to the proper placement of African art in the discourse on global contemporary art, Ndidi rejects both in concept and reference the term 'African Artist'. Her work in terms of stylistic exploit, technical framework and thematic exploration is even more candid about non-conformity to this stereotypical definition. By the nature of her work, Ndidi is universal and contemporaneous.
She places her self in the class of
"highly trained artists of Africa
extraction (who) practise contemporary African art, using among others, techniques borrowed from elsewhere to work on elements garnered from his or her vast cultural heritage. This does not amount to a dilution of authenticity but sheer cultural dynamism, all the more so in an era defined by forces of globalization.
(Excess Baggage… 2000).
ANOTHER tribute, which is contentious and obviously over-stretched in most evaluations of Ndidi's work, is her total allegiance to the sculpture medium. There had even been the suggestion that the wood panel was becoming a formula; may be a trademark. As a matter of fact, she has stayed stuck to the medium for at least 19 years. And for most critics and observers of the Nigerian art scene, especially those whose careers flowered in the late 80s of the so-called 'boom' in the visual arts sector, they have never known Ndidi to do any other work outside sculpting on the wood panels and the ubiquitous mixed media predilection. Her signature to them, is the flat surface wood with tiny figures and signs as decorations.
And Ndidi too might have helped to protract the myth by her deep affection for the wood panel. Perhaps it was only once in that period that she attempted to shock her observers, with (in style and form) adventurous testimonial in Totems and Signposts (Goethe Institut; 2002), when she yanked her rich tapestry of figures, images, signs and symbols from their permanent site on the sculptural relief, and pasted them (still generously) on the body of standing woods -- pillars, totems, and posts.
And refreshing as this new song was, it only excited a few.
YET, Ndidi has always been convinced she has more to offer. That she could resource grave dynamics in her creative enterprise and, pilot her viewers to the other dimensions of her talent, skill and artistic contentions.
"I believe that the beauty of a creative person is the freedom to create as you will. I shouldn't be forced to do works or engage in creativity that I am not deeply inspired to do. When I have a statement to make, I say it the way I am motivated by my inner desire, my convictions to do it. I wanted all these years to work on wood, and that was what I was doing. But those who know my story know that I have always painted like every other trained painter; only that I painted on wood. And I may decide to paint on cloth; on car; on your body. It depends on what I feel like doing".
Show after show, Ndidi has, in truth, shown that she had other dimensions to her artistic enterprise that had not been allowed to flower; or had been deliberately encouraged to rest in her huge cauldron of experiences and encounters with the dynamics of art practices from other parts of the world.
•Ndidi with fellow artists at a Uli workshop in Austria
BUT why is Ndidi painting now; in this show? A boredom with wood? Fed up with sculpture?
No, I’m not bored with wood at all.
Are you sure?
Yeah! I’m very sure
But you haven’t worked on canvas or board for so many years?
No, I have not! In fact, not for
years now. That’s exactly the way it is. But as an artist, you have a feeling to try new things.
And you’re not reacting to some people saying why doesn’t she paint anymore?
I’m a very free spirit. I do what I feel inside. I don’t think there’s any outside influence in all I have done so far in my career. That has never moved me. I’m somebody that if you give me metal, I could work with metal, and if you give me clay I could work with clay; so long I find a medium with which I feel I can express myself.
Twenty years is a landmark in the career of any artist; and now Ndidi, reputed for her woodwork, is going back to painting, where she started from…
Yes.
Isn’t there some other motive for going back to painting?
I feel within myself… I’m somebody who is always willing to add something new. If you look at my very first exhibition, that should be 1986, there were paintings, mixed media, wood works; and after that, I stepped down painting on canvas and concentrated on woodwork. My show in 1987 was mainly sculptures. I found something deeply motivating in the wood; I fell in love with the texture of wood; the language of the wood; the different grades…and I thought I had so much to say with the wood; and that there was much the wood could enable me to say that other mediums may not allow me to say as I wanted to say those things.
That was it.
I am not defending myself. And I didn’t think because I haven’t painted a long time, I should start painting. It’s just exactly how I feel. As I said, there’s no outside influence. It’s just the way I feel as an artist. That’s all. That’s what I feel.
But when did the urge for the canvas hit you?
I’ve been thinking for quite some time… you know, when you’re working, there’s something behind your mind like the theme you want to use or the medium… this is like a reflection of that. I mean I kept saying I wanted to paint on canvas and I never did. But for some reasons in June this year (2004), I just started.
Sure, you’re not trying to say that in 20 years, there were so many things you wanted to say, which the wood medium did not allow you to say? And you thought probably painting would be the appropriate medium…?
I didn’t say that but I felt I wanted something new. I wanted something different from what I was doing before. I just had this new ideas and I felt to say it in a fresh medium;in a fresh mode…
What do you think of those who have been used to your wood...? Have you asked from them what they think of you changing your medium? I have an impression that some of your collectors might be puzzled: why is she painting?
Yeah! You are right. That’s exactly one of the things that came to my mind when I started painting: ‘why is she painting now?’ ‘What has happened to her?’ And as you said: ‘is she tired of woods?’
For me, it is a continued process. As an artist in terms of your creative development, any media you think or feel comfortable with, you can work with. Remember that traditionally, I was a painter and my very early expressions were mixed media before I went to painting, to sculpture and now back to painting. So painting has been my work all these years anyway. I had been painting on wood. I just decided to do it on canvas this time around. So for the collectors, I’m just hoping everybody will feel ‘this is great!’ ‘She is expanding her media’; and that ‘she has raised the bar’.
Yeah, you have been painting on wood, but would you agree that your colour scheme became so vibrant and touching when you brought it out on the canvas? Hasn’t something happened around your creative life?
These things go on in your sub-consciousness. I’ve always liked earth colours — gloss yellow, ochre… colours that have to do with the nature of the earth. So, for me, this is an exhibition of my sub-conscious in terms of the colour scheme I want to use. It’s something I might not really have an explanation for. It just happens when I start painting. I want the colour to be perfect”.
NOT even Ndidi is certain about the future of the latest romance with the canvas. At best, she says ‘all I know is as long as I have things to say and I feel the canvas will enable me to communicate my desires, my artistic intention without inhibitions, I shall go ahead with it”.
But the passion with which she explains her new engagement with the medium, the future may be unmistakable. A major shift in Ndidi’s career, as it happened in the 1987 show in which she stepped into the sculptural field may be replayed. And that may be determined, even if unannounced, by the response of the critical art circuit to the current body of works.
INTERESTINGLY, the works in the current exhibition also show in creative substance the fact that Ndidi’s artistic oeuvre may have undergone a paradigm shift. The canvas has opened a new vista in her approach to theme and stylistic renditions.
In composition, there is a more liberal and space-conscious Ndidi emerging, with a more relaxed application of design motifs.
Unlike the woodwork, the canvases are like wide, open fields accommodative of visual silence and coded imageries, which appear like poetic fairies in the moor of a fictional narrative. The hard surface of the wood, perhaps, would have been less accommodating of the adventurous experimentation with strokes, lines and colour cadences that Ndidi imbued the faces of her canvases with.
****
A Painting Odyssey 1976-2004
INSTRUCTIVELY, Ndidi’s first painting -- Mother and Child (mixed media; 1976) -- had predicted that sculpture might eventually be her favoured medium. The painting appeared almost like a relief sculpture. The figures appeared like pieces of strewn woods planted on the surface of the canvas; though they were no where near the wood panel dimension, which she was later to engage in her sculpture career. She said this painting was inspired by a bead painting by Jimoh Buraimoh, which made a lasting impression on her then as a dreamy, adventurous student of art.
Another work done in 1977, Evil Spirits Converge (mixed media), shared of the sculptural design and eclectic compositional motif. But compared to her later works after graduation in painting, they lacked sophistication of thematic vision and definitive stylistic direction.
But that is expected.
What was unexpected was the dimension to which she was to stretch colour scheme as well as the intensity of her emotions about life, which she also expressed in an outpour of strokes and sometimes robust brush movements.
Perhaps it is a manifestation of the newer experiences and influences she had acquired in the course of her training at the Nsukka School of Art, where the uli decorative concept was a foundational principle.
1983-1985:
THE uli as usually expected from the work of most graduates of the Fine Arts department of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, (UNN) did reflect in Ndidi’s works while studying. In the first instance, there was less emotion in her thematic engagement. She stepped deeper into the realm of abstraction, which had earlier manifested in her works of the1970s, even if she placed greater emphasis on design and colours. Works she accomplished in this period included The Dance, (1984) -- where bold and assertive drawing that had been prominent in her earlier works of the 70s thinned out in detailing. But then she masterfully deployed lines and effusive brush motions to capture the rhythms.
Another painting simply titled Still Life, bears testimony to her impatience with painting as a medium that could effectively bear her evocative testament. It could have been a simple picture of a woman regal in her native wears, but around the face, Ndidi splashed generous paints, which seemed to obliterate the features -- not to any negative effect though. Also, she used colour to create movements of her wrapper such that the still life looks more like an undecided realistic painting.
Even at that, it may not necessarily be impatience with drawing that reduced the detail in her work of this time, but a deliberate experimentation with attributes of forms. A school assignment at the time merely shows a parade of colours in brush strokes, there is no figure visible in the work. But intriguingly, this work in composition and design motifs bears semblance to her very first painting in 1976, Mother and Child.
Another painting in her NYSC year in 1984 juggles the form of the figures, playing with elongation, and distortion but without losing its design appeals.
From this time, Ndidi’s painting style became more assertive in compositional and design concepts. She also grew more experimental in shapes, forms and stylistic approach to the grossly flexible painting medium.
1986 – 1987:
IN her initial paintings in the period 1986 to 1987, Ndidi’s concern was more a predilection for swift design motives, which though rich in concept did not necessarily attempt to explicate the theme. The concern appeared a propensity to use colour to achieve the maximum evocative effect; to lure the viewer to the hideous testimonies of the painting.
There was also the seeming obsession with earthiness — earthly colours -- which appeal to the peaceful recesses of the thought process coupled with a, perhaps, deliberate attempt for definitive figuring but metaphysical use of symbols and signs. Interestingly, this is also borne by the themes, which are not necessarily critically engaging in any form. Perhaps also, there was some exuberance in the choice of theme; albeit the artist was contented with merely celebrating life and the joy of living and loving.
She painted with passion to unearth the poetry buried in her subconscious. Perhaps, it had to do with age, but even as competent as the paintings were in composition and colour schemes, it was the romantic that was reflected in Sunset in Harmattan and Nshiko (Crab) (mixed media -- shells, collared beads, enamel paints) — among the numerous works done in that immediate post-graduation period.
Even when she took on social commentary, the authorial intention is overwhelmed (or nearly outdone) by the design aesthetics — as manifested in Austerity (Hard Times) (mixed media -- painted dry mini pot beads, black beads, glass) (1986) — without negating the pains and anguish unleashed on the poor and the masses by the General Ibrahim Babangida military regime of that International Monetary Fund/Structural Adjustment Policy era.
Illegal Aliens (1983) and Family Exodus (1986) are didactic in themes too, and reflective of the dislocations occasioned by the new West-authored economic policy of the federal government. But the enormity of the tragedy was subdued in the rather romantic colour scheme.
A Return to Roots
AND now that Ndidi Dike has returned to painting after almost twenty years of a deeply engaging affection for the wood, it appears she never really left. Certain modules have changed especially in terms of design concepts and maturity of composition as well as colour schemes, but it is still the essential Ndidi: with elegant brush strokes, a confident engagement of the surface of the canvas and an evocative rendition of the particular thematic concern.
Why the return to painting?
I just feel like changing. I felt like painting. As an artist, I don't like to be stuck to one way of saying what I wanted to say. I work according to how I am directed by my Muse. My Muse said I should paint, so picked up my brush and I painted. I have always painted anyway on my wood; only now I am painting on another material, the canvas."
She sounded ever so convincing in this testimony.
2004: Deconstructing the stereotype
Picking up her brush again, after 19 years of intense romance with the wood, during which she twisted the hard wood panel into sometimes incredible rhythms and motions, Ndidi’s paintings affirmed that she never really left painting. She seemed to have merely shifted her affection to the succulent canvas; away from the wood panel. She may appear less adventurous with composition and form, her affective sense of design and colour schemes remain vibrant and wealthy in contentions.
Though the canvas comes out bigger and more prosperous, it is leaner in volume of figures and design motives. There is an engagement with the minimalist tradition. In most part, the board is left bare, providing a calming effect in the viewers who must have been accustomed to Ndidi’s usually boisterous statement (and sometimes seemingly overstatement) on the wood panels.
Why the reduction in the board’s content?
I don't think it was a deliberate thing. I think I just wanted to allow the colour to dominate the surface of the canvas. I wanted to play around with space. There is power in emptiness, you know; just like there is intensity in silence. I wanted the painting to breath. Maybe that is the only deliberate thing about it all.
Ndidi must have resolved on a leaner, simpler but efficient compositional devices that reflect more her fermenting handling of concepts and materials. She is satisfied with less; though saying more with the intensity of colour and the empty spaces. Indeed, there is more being said in those parts of the board or canvass where the artist appeared to have forgotten to add yet another figure or signs the way she is wont to do in her sculpture.
To the artist however, those untouched spaces, which are nonetheless doused in generous earthy colour are the real sacrosanct site for dialogue with the viewers' inner feelings and sensibilities.
The obsession is more with creating strong visual symbolism through a subtle movement of the brush stroke and a play with light and shades, heavy and thin, positive and negative geometrical signs --- a tendency toward dualism of experience. In this dialogue between diametrically opposing forms and symbols, the artist drags the viewer into a dialogue with her thematic and stylistic contentions. Why for instance, would she leave a large site of the canvas unfulfilled of her definitive symbols and signs, which interpolates between the textual and textural forms, according to the art historian, Syl Ogbechie? By the play on dual formational and thematic concepts, she also lures the viewer beyond the physical images on the canvas into the inner convictions of the artists; her contemplation; her buried conclusions about life’s various conflicting signals. In this dialogue, the viewer finds himself more engaged with the philosophy behind the simple images swimming in an ocean of still primarily earth and basic colours as in The Leopard In My Thought and Colours in My Universe (both acrylic and acrylic pen), which she suggests could be viewed together as two sides of a statement that captures the artist’s resolve on the contradictions in contemporary politics; something like an escape into the beauty within the artist’s inner recesses.
Yet in these works as in the others in this series including Uli Dreamscape, which recourses to design modules of the women exponents of the traditional uli art of wall and body decorations, the rich design motifs remain ever poignant and potent; even in their simple but elegant reign in the corners of the canvas.
Yet Ndidi strikes a familiar sculptural chord in Contemporary Textures and Feelings, which though a painting re-present all the attributes of her wood panel work. Of course, the mixed media dimension -- though a combination of acrylic, jute rope, camel bone and fabric -- already places the work in a context that is beyond a simple painting.
This attribute, seen more in her design motive and composition, would be found in many of the other works in this collection. Placed side by side her sculptures – Political Chess (ebony wood, brass heads), which also done in 2004, might be parts of the current show -- Contemporary Textures and Feelings appears as a wood panel sculpture planted on the face of a canvas.
Significantly however, the painting (and some of Ndidi’s recent wood works) signify perhaps a stylistic shift… a gentler, simpler, empathetic ‘attack’ on the surface of the wood or the canvas. Maybe a personal resolve by the artist that ‘Easy is life, Simple is Beauty; Simple is Richer; Less is More'.
Did she find boredom somewhere along the line in her two decades of professional practice: "No way. I am never bored; not with my art; or any aspect of my practice".
But even this period or era (of seeming significant shift in professional paradigm) is transitory for Ndidi. There is a palpable unpredictability of formalistic contentions in some of her works. Her embrace of the ‘less-is-more’ tradition for instance, is not as formulaic as the work of some other artists of her generation, who of recent had taken the minimalist path, perhaps due more to pressures of tastes and preferences from their Western collectors and patrons. Ndidi would not, for instance, flood the canvas with loud red or orange and proceed to drop one innocuous caricature in the middle or a corner as are prevalent in many works in the gallery circuit of Lagos. She endows her site with meaningful symbols and signs, usually tapped from her rich reservoir of textile design motifs, Efik nsibidi and uli symbols among other resources.
Maybe Ndidi’s advantage albeit differential from her fellow new ‘minimalists’, is her mastery of the apparently difficult wood medium. Her competence in composition and arrangement of colour as well as sophistication in the more technical deployment of non-visual communicative devices such as mood, tones, cadences and variations comes out more manifestly on the surface of the canvas.
Tapestry of Life (acrylic, camel bone and pen), Creating My Own Fabric (acrylic) relish colours as resources of inestimable values in composition and design exercises. The tonal cadences achieved with these two schematic aides of the artist are rare virtues in most paintings in the exhibition circuit. Indigo Dreams II tends to stretch the artist’s comprehension of the untapped natural resources and essences of colour in composition even further. Here, Ndidi simply runs her brush in simple strokes of divergent colours across the surface of the board and then engraves her signature -- the little symbols and figures on the lines, sometimes at unexpected corners, without obstructing the contribution of the mixed media component – acrylic, mud cloth, beads, acrylic pen
Uli Cityscape (acrylic, jute rope, and acrylic pen) may have been inspired by the same Muse bug that propelled the birth of Indigo Dreams but in terms of colour and designs motifs, it differs. Here, the emphasis is on the untouched half of the canvas that is just plain, passive but pensive in its relationship to the other half with a wealth of brush strokes and a suggested landscape.
Again, Ndidi’s qualitative deployment of these schemes may be the fact that she is essentially a compulsive designer with a wide appetite for creating beauty and atmospheric aesthetics.
This intercourse of her mastery of the sculpture medium following 19 years of intense romance with the wood and textile ingredients and her long ‘caged’ painterly competence in the deployment of colour and compositional design motifs, is what is being celebrated in the current outing. But importantly, it signals the opening of yet another chapter in a career that is creatively effusive and adventurous in vision and conception.
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