From Bruce Onobrakpeya’s Black Jesus to Mário Macilau’s animist landscapes, Ada Kalu traces how African artists challenge colonial hierarchies of belief and reclaim the sacred on their own terms.
Bruce Onobrakpeya, Station VI: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, 1969. Linoleum block print on rice paper. Gift of Mr. George A. Naifeh. Courtesy of Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Looking at our current media landscape, it seems all roads point to one question – what do you believe? Earlier this month, Pope Crave, a fan account of Conclave, gained prominence for their access and coverage of the papal conclave leading to the election of Pope Leo XIV. Conclave, which featured scandals in the Vatican, including gossiping and vaping cardinals, has also served as a ‘remarkably accurate’ and useful tool for many clerics experiencing their first election of a new pope. Showing even the religious elite as just like us, in turn, lends itself to the appeal and success of Padre Guilherme, a Portuguese priest and DJ whose sets present a marriage of religion and cultural pride. 2024’s Heretic focusing on Mormonism and attempts to theorise its way through to finding the ‘one true religion’. More recently, the success of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners countries to stir conversation on ancestral beliefs, namely hoodoo, as well as themes of Christianity and its relationship to colonialism, slavery and self. Foundational to all these discussions are how beliefs are placed in a hierarchy from acceptable to unacceptable. The latter is underscored by tradition and impacts how we interpret systems to facilitate our own understanding of what’s right and wrong.
Currently on view at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art is The Mask and the Cross, Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya’s first major solo exhibition in the US following its debut at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. At 92, Onobrakpeya still stands as a seminal figure whose work as both sculptor and printmaker continues to contribute to relevant conversations on Blackness and religion. Born in 1932, Onobrakpeya is privy to both the pre and post-colonial histories of Nigeria. Prior to the induction of Christianity in Nigeria, his work also features the influence of Nigerian folklore and mythology. As a result of this, Onobrakpeya is able to create a fantastical landscape recognizant of Nigeria’s full history. This approach to art-making led him to become a founding member of the Zaria Art Society, an artist collective whose work involves ‘decolonising visual arts and reasserting Nigerian artistic methods’. This commitment to creating and developing art that is independent of a colonial gaze is evident in his works with frequent collaborator and peer Chinua Achebe, whose illustrations were often featured in the author’s work including the cover of No Longer At Ease. This fusion of tradition with Christian beliefs led to controversy in 1966, when commissioned by Father Kevin Caroll to produce a display of Catholic iconography. The result was a series of prints titled ‘Stations of the Cross’, which featured images of Black Jesus, with all Black disciples clothed in traditional attire.
Bruce Onobrakpeya, Jesus on the Cross, 1968. Linocut print. Courtesy of Bruce Onobrakpeya .
The recorded origins of Black Jesus date back to as early as the 19th century, a response to The Ethiopian Manifesto in 1829 by Robert Alexander Young. In this text, Young repeatedly makes a call to Ethiopians – a placeholder for Africans in the diaspora – to recognise the true heritage of Christ as a Black man. A key text in the Pan-African movement, the many references to a Black Messiah resulted in a series of depictions of Black Jesus, including an 1877 stained glass piece by Henry Sharp, the many works of Clementine Hunter’s Black Jesus series as well as Bruce Onobrakpeya’s 1968 print, Crucified Christ. Similar to the rhetoric of God is a woman, neither nor both, the figure of Black Jesus is divisive. The statement continues to cause offence as blasphemous on one side and revolutionary on the other. However, Onobrakpeya’s work, Black Jesus, was and continues to be a very simple and honest depiction of his understanding and readings of Christ. His renderings are then reflective of his being made in the image of Christ. Of this, he says, ‘Christ means something, and my art tries to bring or what Chrtist means to our people in a way they can understand.’
In religious texts, God is an infinitely layered higher power transcending the fathoms and limitations of the human mind. As a result, it’s fair to say God is an amalgamation of all things. In Onobrakpeya’s art, these are all relevant and set the scene for his depiction of the 14 stations, a for us, by us interpretation and understanding of Jesus’ story. The works feature Jesus, and his disciples dressed in adire-like clothing—a dyeing technique for clothing attire often affiliated with Yoruba women in Nigeria’s Southwest region. The violence endured in the story of Jesus is a key element across Messianic faiths, which, in simple terms, present Jesus as the protagonist and the Roman guards as the big bad. In displaying them dressed in the garbs of British colonial officers, Onobrakpeya points out the violent nature of Nigeria’s colonial history and the role this has had on the induction of Christianity in Nigeria.
Mário Macilau, Invisible Faith from the Faith series, 2018. Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper. Courtesy of the artist
The appeal of The Mask and the Cross includes the interrogation and fusion of the religion vs tradition dichotomy. However, Mozambican photographer Mário Macilau offers a different take. In Faith: Fé, Macilau’s photo series explores the practice of animism in Mozambique and its longevity as a traditional belief system. In an interview with Ed Cross, Macilau points out the demonisation of traditional beliefs. ‘When you look at the region, there’s a lot of misunderstanding. There’s a lot of stereotypes [that] relate to voodoo.’ This is a sharp departure from the reality of animism, which simply dictates that all matter across species, sentience and life possess a form of consciousness. A further examination of this means that all things are deserving of our respect—this translates to love and care not just for those around us but for the processes that dictate our living and evolution. This is a green belief that pushes for respect and preservation not just for ourselves but for the world we live in. Animism is simply another belief system that deserves reverence. In describing Animism, Macilau says, ‘I was looking into the traditional religion, the way they believe in God, the way they believe in life, they believe in themself, and the way that they’ve been supporting themself.’ In Faith/ Fé, Macialu’s documentation of animism results in a deeply personal body of work, spotlighting communities on the fringes, and the impact of climate change on the earth, animals and the people that coexist within.
Mário Macilau, Two boys with a fish from the Faith series, 2018. Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper. Courtesy of the artist.
Across DC today, wall tags continue to pop up with the same phrase, ‘Art is for God’. The role of the artist, then, is to present worldviews and promote an understanding of that which is greater than us. The dynamism of Bruce Onobrakpeya’s prints and Mário Macilau’s photographs is less a hierarchical exploration of a definitive true religion than nuanced representations of what it means to believe and the different faces that belief takes. The idea is to lean on one’s autonomy and create a personal understanding of oneself. So, if the question is who gets to be religious in art, the answer is simple: we all do.
Ada Kalu is an arts administrator and writer, with a focus on interdisciplinary programming and education in the museum. With a degree in Literature and Creative Writing and an MA focusing on creative and cultural events, her work spans event production, volunteer management, programming, and gallery relations. Her experience includes 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Frieze, the Aspen Art Fair and the London Film Festival. Her writing has appeared in AFROPUNK, Culture Custodian, Public Parking and more. She is currently based between the UK and Nigeria.
