“Celebration is the lubricant of a challenging life... Otherwise, a sink hole awaits the grumpy man.” - Nduka Otiono
During this visit, I recall Peter was effusively didactic, poignantly infectious and radiated such boisterous zeal with a demonstrated command of materials, sounds, and draughtsmanship. Peter would pick up either the hammer, mallet or chisel to explain his point. For TV production, this sound effect from the artist demonstrations was the magnum opus of reportage. Our audience feedback on Arthouse featuring ‘The art of Peter Akinwumi’ shot through the roof.
Peter graduated in Sculpture from the prestigious cultural center of Nigeria; the University of Benin in Edo State and it is understandable where this “dot-beaten” romance may have caught on.
These collections can be categorized in three stratum: the almost square full sheet panels as one piece of art, a collection of several horizontal panels and the digital art series. Works like “The Maiden Dance”, “The Talking Drum speaks” and “Vision of a Spoon Bill” fall within the first category. The colours are subtle and the embossing is very pronounced. Most significantly is the rhythm of the pose in the “Maiden Dance” with a distinctive emphasis on the drapery of the frontal figure. The muscular strength of the dancer’s stomach is highly and dramatically chased. The several dancing figures all recede in the work in attenuated perspective. Peter deliberately renders off-balance the main figure and this accentuates the effect of his presentation. A significant pronounced curvilinear line runs from the top down, but disappears behind the main figure dance frenzy. The use of detailed ornamentation is explored on the drummers garment in the “The Talking Drum speaks”. This work, as part of his earlier series, were adorned with extensive traditional motifs and signs. The colour rendition tilts to the red family of the colour wheel with orange being predominant. However, the use of yellow on the surface of the drum, complimented with a dash of ultramarine blue and sap green come off giving the work, its musical strength.
These relief techniques of metal sheet manipulation are one of man’s earliest acquired skills which have been widely used from the prehistoric era on materials such as gold, silver, copper, bronze and tin. Peter’s works strong penchant is the copper and bronze surfaces exploitation. Peter straddled these materials well and has crested on the modernist side of the swell to now etch his name as the doyen of the “dot-beaten” movement in Nigerian art.
The other sets of works that are executed on full panel are “Arm of Protection 1”, “Victory Dance” and “Celebration”. These works resonates the classical achievement of the aluminium control. In the “Arm of Protection”, the work has a full feminine figure wearing a bead. The background is separated into square spaces with hieroglyphic splice figures in the separate spaces. The colour choices are the extensive use of the primary: red, yellow and blue to boost the story line. However yellow is more pronounced and dominant. Two figures in this panel are represented in the figurative style of the Akwanshi stone sculpture. The main figure is in a graceful pose of elegant feminity; desirous and regal. The masculine figures in the background stand in awe and allure to appreciate the stately charm of her refinement. In his ubiquitous trademark, the free flow of lines gives prominence to and attention to female figure calm pose.
Conversely, the “Victory Dance”, “Celebration 1 & 2” “Reflection of Passion”, “Circle of Life”, “Voices” and “Dialogue of the Wise” are the epitome of Peter’s oeuvre. In these series of works, Peter has extensively exploited forms, content and colours. The materials are as daring and the theme as challenging. The figures are multiple, as in “Celebration 2” with each panel punctuating a political or cultural message, as it were. While “Victory Dance” and “Celebration” come in full panels, the latter are rendered in the triptych or several panels method.
Historically, in the 3rd century the Greeks created classical bronze armor with this technique. In the Middle-East, a variety of semi-mass production methods were introduced to avoid repetitive free-hand work. Gold sheets were hammered with different interesting patterns into stones, bone and other non-corrosive metals. These works to the non-discerning connoisseur are on the border of relief sculpture. However these works done in the repousse order: a metal working technique in which metal is ornamented or shaped by beating from the reverse side to create designs in low relief.
Repousse explores the plasticity of metal by beating out shape from the back of a given metal plate, while chasing refine the design on the front by sinking the metal to create variation between the concave and convex contour which eventually gives form to the desired identity. Therefore, Chasing is the opposite technique to repousse and the two are used in conjunction to create a finished piece. This can also be called embossing.
According to the artist, “I first started playing around repousse and chasing in 1983 while still in the Secondary School as a small craft business. I used this technique in embossing zodiac signs and corporate logos for decoration on doors, pendants and wallets. I also used foils derived from coverings of beverages and toothpaste tubes for some miniature reliefs, as wall hangs.”
In contemporary Nigerian Art, one of the available documented records of this technique is the one that was first explored by Olatunde Ashiru and his brother after receiving training through the Mbari School under the tutelage of Susan Wenger. As a traditionally trained blacksmith he combined his skills to employ a hammered in technique in which punchers of varying nibs were used to beat out images mostly on the frontal surface. His embossed images which played around Yoruba folklores were all mostly on the same relief level.
The hammered-in approach uses more of chasing. Instead of starting by beating from the back [Repousse], an artist nails down or hammers in from the front, thereby leaving unhammered surface elevated. Patterns can be marked on the embossed surface by stuffing the back with wax or a leather cushioned pouch. The finished work has little gradation of contoured protrusion and depths as compared to a relief that fully utilize both the repousse and chasing technique. However in its own right when well employed, the hammered-in-technique can turn out spectacular reliefs as portrayed in Olatunde Ashiru works.
Few artists who employed this technique needed to use punchers since their approach was limited to the hammered-in technique. Peter Akinwumi achievement is the academic juxtaposition and refinement. “The repousse and chasing approach I used in the eighties died in 1992 when I decided to take it beyond the point of using it for logo designs and other craft purposes. The last works I did then was the brass logo of the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona and corporate logo for the defunct All States Bank.”
Continuing, Peter explains “By late 1992, my motivation was to use repousse and chasing technique in creating relief impression similar to what one can achieve with material like clay, cement, wood and other easily manipulative sculpture media. I wanted to see wide dimension of metal spread, bearing figures that are well embossed, with convincing and definable features. I wanted to see interesting portrayals of drapery, not marked by tools, but beaten into form with well varied concave and convex contours.”
Peter asserts that the beginning was a period of a slow and painstaking learning exercise. His journey like a troubadour took a staggered process from Benin to Lagos in 1998, “fortunately I got free supply of cut outs of copper and brass sheets from a good friend by the name Kabat Esosa Egbon.I worked with this for some months before I finally opted for Aluminum because of its rare ability to maintain a constant surface appeal.”
At the end of 1998, Peter moved in with Enotie Ogbebor at Curio Studio in Rita-Lori Hotels at Babs-Animashaun where he shared space and ideas with in-house Artists like Dafe Sowho, Ehi Obinyan, Kabat Esosa, Bob Aiwerieoba and many others.
Curio Studio provided room for him to practically define his newly included use of “dots” to go side by side the repousse and chasing technique. He discovered that dots, if judiciously employed helps to make the metal controllable to create more detailed reliefs with little or no torn background.
This progressive development saw figures being introduced in his space exploration to create his signature tune. According to the artist “I revisited styles of figures I developed for several concrete reliefs I did in 1992 for the heritage hall of the Awujale's Palace and made modification to achieve a stylised kind of realism. More like psychedelic figures that in a way still bears features of tradition African sculptures from different part of the continent, south of the Sahara.”
The most interesting characteristics of Peter’s aluminum sculpture relief, is the fact that most of the figures are footless and yet they don’t look handicapped. This is because proper attention is given to details to engage or stimulate the audience. Particularly interesting is the vanishing of forms as if erased. The artist asserts “… I only freely use my Artistic license to subtract and add where I see necessary in order to give these figures a signature I want to be identified with. What is Creativity if the Artist cannot freely bend the rules to achieve something unique and pleasing to the Eyes?”
The body of works in this “Celebration” exhibition according to the artists attests to the ethereal summation and corporal vicissitudes of this repousse journey: positively vibrant and emphatically progressive. It is a journey he has come to appreciate as his first solo show. A most difficult process since, being able to achieve a body of work for a show has been almost impossible due to the constant commissions assailing him. A most philosophical artist, Peter is undeterred by the vagaries of artistic hurdles that he constantly has to face. They are fluctuations on the graph, but not deviations. Celebration is a time to appreciate these artistic deposits after the long nights of drawn knives.
By Chief Joe Musa
October 25, 2013
Comments
Post a Comment