By Osa Mbonu-Amadi, Arts Editor
A joint artwork exhibition of work through which two standard artists, Ebenezer Akinola and Raji Babatunde, are conducting inquiries into the thriller of Spirituality and Gentle opens Saturday, Novermber 8, and runs until November 22, 2025 at Alexis Galleries, off Idowu Martins, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Alexis Galleries describes Ebenezer as an “internationally famend artist”, and Raji Mohammed Babatunde as his mentee. “The exhibition is engaged in an inquiry into our transcendence,” says the gallery.
For Curator of Spirituality and Gentle, Uche Obasi, the exhibition “engages psycho-visual gestures in portray that invite the viewer to come across and lay maintain of the quiet luminescence of divine radiance, the instincts and intuitions that lead, drive, and form our on a regular basis lives in each good and unhealthy occasions.”
“Ebenezer Akinola’s work, imbued with delicate gentle and shadow, are characterised by performative and ingenious imagery of actual folks — usually strangers or neighbors who staged for him as formidable topics.
“These figures,” the Curator writes, “seem engaged in esoteric rituals, draped in closely layered fabric, adorned with jewel-toned ornaments and head scarves, uniformly positioned in theatrical gestures and encircling a fanning cyclone of burning furnaces.”
In line with Obasi, “Babatunde treats luminous gentle as revelation; he levels figures, usually ladies in stressed, looking out poses — who maintain lamps, mirrors, and hourglasses as alchemical anchors of divine illumination and information. In his self-staged portrait titled Reflection of Our Inside Gentle, Babatunde assumes the function of each topic and seeker, holding his alter ego —a fragile glow of religion — mirrored as a mirror depicting a toddler intent on holding a candlelight.
Spirituality and Gentle examines how gentle — each primal and literal, or non secular — shapes identification and self-consciousness throughout our up to date second.
Ebenezer Samuel Akinola, born 1968, in Ibadan, Nigeria, is a distinguished figurative painter whose works discover cultural transcendent, spirituality, and identification. He’s a 1989 first-class graduate of High quality Artwork and Portray from the College of Benin. His commissioned portraits of former Nigerian presidents Azikiwe, Abubakar, and Obasanjo reside within the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, Nigeria.
“The physique of works I create represents my imagined gatekeepers: figures that stand as custodians of entry, knowledge, transformation and life. By means of my artwork, I discover what communal fraternity would possibly appear to be in a world the place the non secular and the fabric coexist,” Ebenezer says. “On this exploration, I search to visualise the interaction between individuality and neighborhood, the sacred and the on a regular basis. By reimagining gatekeepers and the ceremonies that honour them, I invite the viewer to query their very own relationship with the unseen and think about the rituals, each private and collective, that information them by life’s many thresholds.”
Raji Mohammed Babatunde, born 1986, in Lagos, Nigeria, is an impressionist painter standard for his heat, figurative portraits that seize on a regular basis life of girls and the innocence of childhood.
He was a 2008 NCE graduate of Adeniran Ogunsanya Faculty of Schooling earlier than continuing to the College of Nigeria, Nsukka for B.A. in Artwork Schooling in 2015. He educated beneath notable artists, together with Ebenezer Akinola. He at present serves as Coordinator of Space29.7 Studios in Lagos.
“Gentle could be very symbolic in spirituality and artwork as technique of expression. Merging each of those leads to not only a composition however a sense of sacredness of the divine utilizing the visible language of sunshine. It’s about making the invisible visually seen,” Babatunde says. “On this sub-series, I search to visualise the sacred connections between people and the divine; how we reverence and honour the presence and awesomeness of our creator in our personal areas or as a bunch; the magnificent approach his gentle radiates in our lives and the way it displays on parts that considerations us together with our speedy atmosphere.”
Talking with Vanguard Newspaper in an interview for the exhibition, Ebenezer talked about what he known as the interior gentle; how he stated to Babatunde: “Let’s do one thing that could be very profound, one thing that individuals can relate with.” He stated he prompt to Babatunde to speak about Gentle, whereas he himself talks about Spirituality.
Nevertheless, Babatunde says “The sunshine we’re speaking about is far more than synthetic type of gentle.”
How lengthy did it take the artists to arrange for this exhibition?
Babatunde stated when it comes to the time it took to create artistic endeavors, folks normally discuss in regards to the time of preparation, and the time spent to do the work on canvas. “However we have to discuss in regards to the time of the ideation, the conception stage, as a result of we began since final 12 months, I feel the fourth quarter final 12 months.”
Among the many titles of works Ebenezer brings to Spirituality and Gentle are “The Overseer 1&2”, “Communion”, “Silence of Expectation”, and ” The Gatekeepers of Paradise.”
Raji Babatunde’s works for the exhibition are titled “Imole”, “Reflection of Our Inside Gentle”, “Larger Gentle 1&2”, and “Encounter”.
The publish Ebenezer, Babatunde in search of Spirituality & Light @ Alexis Galleries appeared first on Vanguard News.
