Nationalism and the Rhetoric of Modernism in Nigeria: The Art of Uche Okeke and Demas Nwoko, 1960–1968: [With Commentary]

Decolonising African vernacular rooted sculptures of selected contemporary Nigerian and South African artists

“…Since the dawn of the postcolonial era in the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, when most African nations became independent, scholars have engaged in the decolonisation of thought and philosophy. Although a very restrictive understanding of decolonisation is limited to the use of the term in the struggles for political independence (Okeke-Agulu 2006;Pissarra 2009), contemporary decolonisation is taken beyond the formal transfer of power. In light of this, in the African art canon, artists, curators and scholars have in different ways engaged in decolonising projects in theory and practice by identifying gaps, arguing thoughts, creating and curating multiple artworks from the continent and diaspora.…”

“…I draw the conception of decoloniality from the school of thought of Natural Synthesis proposed by Uche Okeke. This entails the conscious, critical deployment of the fresh aesthetic and technical expertise learned from the art classes to synthesise mainstream Western abstraction and fundamental African aesthetic sensibilities (Okeke-Agulu 2006;Owerka 1985). To this end, this essay seeks to establish how Natural Synthesis is expressed in the individual works of two South African sculptors, Pitika Ntuli and Sinethemba Ngubane, and two Nigerian sculptors, Yemi Ijisakin Olaolu and Fidelis Odogwu Eze.…”