This May, OM234 is proud to present ‘Oliver Enwonwu: A Continued Legacy’, a joint exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculpture by Oliver Enwonwu and his father, Prof. Ben Enwonwu, MBE, NNOM (1917 – 1994) at Mall Galleries.
Oliver Enwonwu painting Agbogho Mmuo (2020). Courtesy of OM234.
To coincide with the 30th anniversary of Ben Enwonwu’s passing, the exhibition is conceived as a conversation between both artists exploring their shared depiction of femininity as a symbol of indigenous aesthetic and primordial feminine power. The exhibition venue pays homage to Ben Enwonwu’s 1985 exhibition ‘Dance Theme’ also staged at Mall Galleries.
For ‘A Continued Legacy’, Oliver Enwonwu has created new paintings that deviate from his father’s aesthetic to unpack ideas of nationhood, the female body, gesture, and symbolism. With a focus on the movement, hair, and clothing of his sitter’s Enwonwu depicts “strategy of resistance” emphasizing the self-assertiveness of his subjects. Enwonwu also engages with the works of other modern masters who failed to fully acknowledge their sources of inspiration in the geometric shapes of African masks and sculpture. Significantly, he has reinterpreted Picasso’s “Les Desmoiselles d’ Avignon” in a new work titled “Were God to be a Woman”. This painting asks us to reimagine the role of the women depicted by artists such as Picasso and celebrate indigenous African power over objectivity and colonialism.
The use of archival material will underscore the exhibition and the relationship between the older and younger Enwonwu artists. Photographs of Ben Enwonwu with his iconic bronze ‘Anyanwu’ at the National Museum in Lagos will be juxtaposed with images of his son standing next to the same work decades later. They also serve to highlight the beginning of the latter’s exploration of sculpture as a medium. Completed works in limestone and paintings appropriating “Anyanwu” that express ideas of the woman and nationhood will also be presented.
In a long career spanning over six decades Ben Enwonwu’s broad oeuvre embraces several themes including the metaphysical, colonialism, sexism, gender inequality, environmental sustainability, and peace. Among Ben Enwonwu’s most acclaimed works are three iterations of Adetutu Ademiluyi, then a youthful princess of Ile-Ife. In continuing a conversation with his father, Oliver Enwonwu returns to the royal household for the making of another series of royal portraits. His subject is Adetutu’s niece, Olori Aderonke Ogunwusi (nee Ademiluyi, great-granddaughter of Ooni Ajagun Ademiluyi and wife of the present Ooni). In this new series of paintings Oliver Enwonwu re-enacts an artistic process of his father and continues his legacy. Printed editions of Ben Enwonwu’s ‘Adetutu Ademiluyi’ works will also be available.
Ben Enwonwu’s sculpture of HM Queen Elizabeth II is also amongst his most celebrated works and will be remembered through a series of archival images depicting the late artist working on the sculpture and his meeting with HM to explain his artistic process in 1957. There will also be a small of photographs of Oliver Enwonwu presenting the work to the then HRH Prince Charles on an official visit to Nigeria.
Together the work of Ben and Oliver Enwonwu in ‘A Continued Legacy’ will examine the meeting point of tradition and modernity while highlighting the continued relevance of indigenous African identities, values, and beliefs in the contemporary globalised world.
The exhibition will be. on view from the 21st of May until the first of June, 2024. For more information, please visit OM234.
