ARTS & REVIEW\\ VISUAL ARTS RETURN OF THE MAVE
Germany-based Nigerian artist Emmanuel Eni is sending out strong feelers into the local art scene with his planned solo exhibition in Lagos, he tells Okechukwu Uwaezuoke
Trust Emmanuel Eni to have something up his sleeves. Another of his solo exhibitions is in the works. This one, he chooses to entitle Art Merchants. He says it’s about, among other things, “coming out of a cocoon”. But what the Germany-based dreadlockssporting artist is really trying to do is wriggle out of the fetters of stereotypes. Of course, this proposed solo outing – billed for a yet-to-be-chosen date – also beams the spotlight on the challenges of the current African art market.
For his latest foray into the Nigerian art scene, the local aficionados should expect about 20 of Eni’s latest sculptures and paintings. Out of these, there would be 15 sculptures of different sizes (ranging from a foot to 5 feet), made with different media: bronze, fibre-glass and terra cotta. The looming solo outing also introduces a selection of his light-paintings. On the latter technique, he explains: It is “one way that I crystallise transience.” Through them, he expects the viewer to experience deep, stirring emotions. This, he adds, “is a new way I created to accentuate and present the inner light projecting from paintings.”
Still on the light-paintings, he speaks of “a dual light-scope that gives the works double position to reflect and evocate contained themes.” Painstaking efforts by the artist tend to coax out incandescent figures on canvas with oil, acrylic and mixed media. “I have painted in a way that the pictures become illuminated. Painting you can see in the dark.”
Take the painting, “Sitting Woman”, for instance. On each part of a canvas split equally by a white vertical line, a seated pear-shaped woman backs the viewer as she contemplates the horizon. The viewer discerns an attempt to wring out the inner light from the seated figure and her motif-laden backdrops. This is true of each of the contrasting parts, whose light and dark backgrounds evoke the ying and yang.
The forthcoming exhibition will be comple-