NIKE DAVIES OKUNDAYE; THE ARTIST

By Keith Richards

It is not possible to fully appreciate the work of Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye, the artist, without having some understanding of the cultural, social and religious environment that has shaped her life and her work. The very essence of Nike can be seen very clearly in this collection from the early monochrome pen and ink work, through her time at the Osogbo School under the spiritual influence of her mentor Suzanne Wenger and right until her latest collaboration with Tola Wewe in their “Stitches of Partnership”.  Throughout her life Nike has always remained utterly connected to her being as a Yoruba woman. From leaving home at 13 to escape an arranged marriage, the experience of being the junior wife in the Twins Seven Seven compound, the profound mysticism of the Orisha religion and the witnessing of the failure of Western Nigerian Society to improve the economic and social lot of rural and working class women. In fact, the very fibre of Nike’s work is woven from these threads both in terms of the subject and the media she works in.

Much of the work in this retrospective is from a prolific period when, working with Watercolour and Pen & Ink, she documented the lives of women in the village.  Sometimes working but usually singing or dancing, the women are invariably reflected with dignity and humour, warmth and affection.  Despite the economic hardship which led Nike to create centres and workshops where local girls could learn the traditional skills of Adire (Batik), dyeing, weaving and making an independent living (usually selling their output through Nike’s own Galleries) the emotions depicted are those of joy, love and hope. Her determination that Art can be a weapon for the empowerment of her native Yoruba women continues to be her motivation.  Her technical accuracy aligned with her native passion for deep colour and rich texture are eloquent testimony for her beliefs.

Her recent work with Tola Wewe brings yet another dimension albeit from within the same cultural and spiritual framework. Tola defines the shape and broadly the subject matter, which are inspired by the spirits that inhabit his world of Onaism (a group that develop art through the use of traditional Yoruba symbols and beliefs).  Nike develops the texture specifically through the filing of spaces using traditional Adire patterns and Yoruba symbols that represent the emotions and the insight of their ancestors.  This collaboration seems to me to be unique in that the two artists are clearly drawing from the same well of belief, fusing a single mystical motif from their differing techniques and methods.  Renaissance artists, post-impressionists, pre-Raphaelites and others all worked together within their broadly shared value systems, most usually Christian for example, but it is tempting to believe that the same spirits and ancestors were present for both Tola and Nike in their separate studios ensuring a particularly cohesive association.

The range of their collaboration is also of interest.  The early pieces are highly evocative, clearly reflecting the belief that humans and spirits inhabit the same world.  As their work develops, more secular themes such as the “Feminine Power Series” or “Seeking for Love” consider a more overtly sexual side of African Womanhood and the consequence of economic disability, misplacement and desperation.  Nike’s influence in these pieces ensures that dignity and beauty are somehow maintained despite the more graphic approach.  Displaying their versatility there are also examples of a lighter touch, documenting everyday cultural activity and events, as in the “Trip to the Hills”.

It goes without saying that African Art is still a ‘Frontier Market” and buying as an investment is not without its risks.  Having said that, the surge in interest in both modern pieces and older tribal art, encouraged by the development of quality auctions and galleries in Africa itself as well as by the increase in auctions in London, New York and Paris has seen healthy growth in prices.  Given the smaller Watercolour and Pen & Ink pieces in Nike’s show are GBP 3,000 this seems a reasonable risk for a genuine insight into an ancient and vibrant culture from a unique woman.  This November the Smithsonian will be celebrating 50 Years of its African Art Collection and amongst the honourees will be another Nigerian friend and confidant of Nike, Bruce Onobrekpeya.  Something tells me the Gallery of African Art will be somewhere to keep an eye on.  Nike Davies-Okundaye – A Retrospective, is on till 22nd November.

NIGERIA'S FIRST TEXTILE MUSEUM

Despite volumes that have been written and voices loud enough on the importance of the creative sector’s ability to drive tourism economy, government still appears lethargic. But all is not lost, as Abuja’s tourism landscape is expected to receive a boost this year with a Textile Museum at the proposed Arts Village.

It is, perhaps, the first of its kind in Nigeria where genre-specific museums are uncommon. The proposed facility is the initiative of a renowned artist, Nike Okundaye, whose career of over 40 years has been on textile art.The textile museum is being conceived as part of a big cultural centre to be built on a six-acre land said to have been acquired by the artist’s family a few years ago. As a textile artist, Okundaye is also known to be a passionate collector of modern Nigerian textiles across cultures. Some of Okundaye’s collections in textiles, as old as many decades, are currently housed on the top floor of Nike Art Centre, Lekki, Lagos.

“We have just been able to complete payment for our six acres of land in Abuja, on which we plan to build an Art Village,” Chief Reuben Okundaye disclosed at Nike Art Centre. The Art Village, he assured, will have “a Textile Museum for my wife’s over two thousand collections.It is of note that the artist’s passion in textile goes beyond producing the well-known Yoruba native adire fabric from which she has become a revered name globally. Nike, as she is fondly called within the art circle, has done a lot of paintings in different media depicting the adire texture. Apart from the museum, the Arts Village, according to Chief Okundaye, will have amphitheatre and gallery of African Art as well as a multi-purpose hall.

After opening for business in 2011/2012, a visit to Nike Art Centre revealed what one thought could generate the proposed Textile Museum. Obviously, the artist already had her dream of a specialised museum for textile worked out back then. At the textile museum section of the building, the artist’s passion for fabrics of African origin was loud. Okundaye then noted, “We are fast losing our traditional textiles and something has to be done.”

Neatly arranged in the textile section were hand-woven materials such as alari, sanyan, petuje, among other hand-woven Yoruba native textiles.When the proposed Textile Museum becomes a reality, Nike, again, would be filling a vacuum abandoned by the government. Currently, the Nike Art Centre is the only visible spot for modern and contemporary gallery in Lagos, a city variously described as ‘Africa’s six largest economy.” But a unit known as Modern Gallery at the National Arts Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, remains a huge embarrassment to a nation like Nigeria. Apart from the fact that the art pieces on display are endangered – given the deplorable state of the building – the modern and contemporary textures of Nigerian art vigour are not updated.

FOR the Nike Art Centre, the passion is in favour of tourism as a strong ingredient of developing Nigeria’s economy. The Textile Museum, Chief Reuben stated, would go a long way in developing the tourism industry.“Tourism can create jobs as we are trying to do with the Textile Museum so that every family involved in tourism industry should able to feed themselves,” he said.

With over 25,000 pieces of art at Nike Art Centre’s gallery space, the proposed Arts Village in Abuja has enough pool of collection to feed from the Lagos facility. Perhaps, as part of preparation towards the building of the Textile Museum, promotion through workshops for better understanding of textile art would be touted as the focus of Nike Art Centre this year.

If anyone is interested in researching Nigeria’s tourism business in the context of foreign inflow of visitors, the Nike Art Centre appears to be the right resource spot. It is no longer news that the centre is known to be a spot of attraction for foreign tourists.

But a disturbing revelation came to light when Chief Reuben said: “Tourists complain about the difficulty in getting Nigerian visa for visit” and advised government to “relax” the process and condition for “tourist visa so that more visitors can come here” and argued, “we know because tourists who come here complain of difficult of about as much as six months to get a visa to visit Nigeria.”

A few hours after the Okundayes shared their 2018 plans with their guests, a list of artists and art patrons were scheduled to receive awards for their contributions in developing Nigeria’s art. The award night themed ‘Connecting Lagos with Art’ had Prince Yemisi Shyllon, Robin Campbell, Prof. Peju Layiwola, Ndidi Dike, Sam Ovraiti, Rom Isichei and Peju Alatise, among over 10 others as recipientsThe awards are important to encourage people to do better in creating and promoting art,” Chief Reuben explained. “We hope to make the award a yearly event.”Still on arts as a crucial content of tourism, the Nike Arts Centre appears to have its main focus of the year on Lagos State. It’s a proposed Public Private Partnership (PPP) to be known as Trash to Treasure. Nike said the project is a collaboration with Lagos State Government, adding, “It’s called Trash to Treasure, which we want to use in creating monthly festivals in collaboration with Lagos State Government.”

What looks like the pilot process of the proposed collaboration, she said, “has already started with a private outfit, Sisi Oge Beauty Pageant” and noted that Lagos has so much potential to be host to as many festivals as possible. “We can recreate other festivals in Lagos; people don’t need to travel out of the city to attend major festivals in the country.”

When the Nike Art Centre opened six years ago, space utilisation in curatorial articulation gave artists, who work in large format canvas and installation, more windows of artistic expression. Also, the centre expanded the number of works on display for exhibitions with a minimum of about 50 works on each of the four-flour building. It was an unprecedented availability of space in Nigerian art exhibition circuit despite the building’s challenge of columns that could obstruct viewing.In a given exhibition that may need the entire gallery space, as many as 300 pieces of art can be on display in a conservative curatorial style devoid of choking.

A Nigerian Artist with a differience

NIke is the Managing Director/CEO of Nike Center for Art and Culture, Osogbo where trainings are offered free of charge to all Nigerians in various forms of arts. The center was established in 1983, by Nike solely from her earnings as an artist and without governmental assistance. Nike opened this center with 20 young girls who were marching the streets in Osogbo aimlessly and who had no hopes for the future. In their tender age, Nike withdrew these girls from the streets and provided them with free food, free materials and free accommodation at her residence at Osogbo and taught them how to use their hands to earn decent livings through the art. So far, over 3000 young Nigerians have been trained in the center and who are now earning their decent livings through art. Many African countries now send their students to study textile art at the center.

The Nike Center for Art and Culture, Osogbo now admits undergraduate students from many universities in Nigeria for their industrial training programs in textile design. Over the years, this center also now admits students from all over Europe, Canada and the United States of America. International scholars and other researchers in traditional African art and culture also visit the center from time to time for their research works into Yoruba "Adire" fabric processing and African traditional dyeing methods.

Nike is also the Owner/Curator of the Nike Art Galleries at Lagos, Osogbo, Ogidi-Ijumu and Abuja. In 1996, Nike established a textile (Aso-Oke) weaving center at Ogidi-Ijumu near Kabba in Kogi State for the women of the village, employing and empowering more than 200 women in the weaving center. In June 2002, Nike established an Art and Culture research center at Piwoyi village, FCT Abuja with an art gallery and a textile museum, the first of its kind in Nigeria which will provide functional platform for research into Nigerian traditional textile industry in the Federal Capital Territory area of Abuja. In furtherance of these noble endeavors, Nike is currently the managing director and founder of the following organizations in Nigeria; "Nike Art Productions Limited" which she incorporated in 1994, "Nike Art Gallery Limited" which she incorporated in 2007 and the "Nike Research Centre for Art and Culture Limited" which she incorporated in 2007. Also in 2007, Nike founded the "Nike Art and Culture Foundation" with some notable eminent Nigerians as trustees, with the main aims and objectives of fostering Nigerian cultural heritage.

MICHAEL JACKSON CHILDREN TODAY

 In the image, 19-year-old Paris poses in a Metallica hoodie with her brother Prince Michael, 20, to her left, and a family friend, Omer Bhatti, to her direct right, with her youngest brother, Blanket, 15, at the end. 

On Christmas Day, Paris Jackson shared a new family photo, providing a rare sighting of Michael Jackson’s three children together.

"Happy Christmas from ours to yours #brahdas," the caption on the photo reads

Ruth Kadiri, got engaged

It is no longer news that 29-year-old Edo State actress cum producer, Ruth Kadiri, got engaged to her mystery man in Sweden during the week, as she displayed her engagement ring in a post without showing the lucky man whom she allegedly referred to as red cap chief.

Woman gets $284 billion electric bill, wonders whether it's her Christmas lights

You could own all of Netflix. Or purchase 747 Boeing 747s, with change to spare. Or erase the national debts of Venezuela, Nigeria, Peru and Iceland, combined.Or, if you're Mary Horomanski, you could pay for one month's worth of electricity.Horomanski, from Erie, Pennsylvania, was shocked recently when she received an erroneous electric bill displaying an account balance of "284,460,000,000," with a first payment due of $28,176."I opened it up and there it was," she told The Washington Post.Horomanski, 58, began counting the commas ("Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Billions . . . Can most people even count that high?"), then taking her glasses off and putting them on again."It wasn't due until November of 2018," she said. "It was like, well, I guess we have a year to come up with this billion-dollar bill."

What can you buy with $284 billion?

A wordsmith who spins magic, Lesley Nneka Arimah is our 2017 Artist of the Year

Lesley is a great writer,” said Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation, which honored Arimah with its 5 Under 35 award. “She produced a collection of stories that are really hard to pin down. They’re funny and intelligent and fierce in their own way, and they’re unexpected. I love that I picked up that book and I had no idea what I was picking up. And I left a bit in awe of her craft.”

Arimah is at the forefront of a growing number of young authors, primarily immigrants and writers of color — in the Twin Cities, as well as across the country — who are writing some of the most original and interesting fiction and poetry being published today.

For all of these reasons, Twin Cities writer Lesley Nneka Arimah is the Star Tribune’s Artist of the Year for 2017.