Akeem Lasisi
All is now set for a solo exhibition by Titi Omoghe’s holding at the Temple Gallery from June 5 to August 30. Omoighe is one of Nigeria’s brilliant artists with a chain of awards to her credit.
The curators, Sandra Obiago, describes the 49-year-old is one of Nigeria’s best kept art secrets. She grew up in Lagos and graduated from the Yaba College of Technology with a Higher National Diploma in Painting in 1989, being awarded the Best Life Drawing Student Award of the year.
She completed her national service in Kano where she received the Kano State NYSC Award before starting a career as an artist and designer at the Nigerian Television Authority in Lagos and Abeokuta, where she created iconic set designs for news, theatre, adverts, and beauty pageants on television and at the National Theatre in Lagos. She was awarded the 1st Prize URTNA Nelson Mandela Trophy Design Award in Nairobi in 1992.
Obiago notes that the exhibition titled Modern Interpretations offers a rare perspective on traditional art forms from a little known academic whose interpretation of traditional philosophy, literature and cultural identity shows a refreshing maturity and nuanced artistic breadth.
Obiago says, “Titi’s canvases reflect both the physical action of characters in search of higher meaning while engulfed in ‘other-worldly’ adventure, as well as deftly draws us into the emotional and spiritual landscapes of memory, longing and revelation.”
In a statement tagged ‘African Philosophy and Forms in Visual Narratives’, the artist says the exhibition is in continuation of her earlier expressions in visual art and creative exploration.
“I recall my first encounter with the vast lands of the northern Nigeria’s sub-Saharan landscapes with the baobab trees, Fulani women and herdsmen in their colourful outfits and festivities,” Titi notes. “It was a huge contrast to the hustle and bustle and the density of life in Lagos. Where I was born, I was used to seeing tall buildings and yellow taxis in endless traffic on the streets and bridges. These new impressions and experiences informed my exhibitions such as Northern, Figures and Landscapes (1990), Inner Essence (1992) and Tourists in Paradise, which was the exploration of my travels across Nigeria like my journey of life. My Living Roles exhibition (1994) was my tribute to the great women of Nigeria: Queen Amina, Madam Tinubu, Margaret Ekpo, Madame Ransome Kuti, Queen Idia and all other female activists.”
Titi continues to draw inspiration from David Diops’ popular poem on Africa:
Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral Savannah.
Africa of whom my grandmother sings in the bank of the river.
I have never known you, but your blood flows in my veins.
Your beautiful blood that irrigates the field.
She says, “The African spirit is also ignited in the famous literary works of D. O. Fagunwas’ Ogboju Ode, Ninu Igbo Irumale, which was translated into English by the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, called A forest of thousand Demons. These great works inspired my Masters’ degree research project at the University of Benin where I focused on interpreting literature in visual art (painting).”
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