Nigeria Essays -- Africa Culture Papers

Nigeria Modern Nigeria is an archetypal cauldron, enmeshed with a variety of heathenish groups and traditions, nevertheless united by the prospect of forging a rumindep displaceent national identity element. Hausa, Fulbe, Yoruba and Igbo are among the largest of those, in the forty -three years since the end of colonial occupation, struggling to maintain their linguistic and cultural affiliations while concurrently converging t o create a syncretic intellect of Nigerianness. Subsequently, as one means of understanding art, in essence, is as a celebration of identity, artwork in the post -independence era manifests this struggle thus, placing artists at the epicenter of cultural iden tification.In the 1960s, artist Uche Okeke emerged as an integral conception in the development of Nigerian art, and thus, Nigerian identity. Drawing from his Igbo heritage, Okeke effectively appropriated pre -colonial dainty traditions and applied them in an art for arts sake context. Okekes work, however, is not a mere recontextualization and revitalization of old forms. Rather, informed by historical situation, Okekes artworks are personal testimonies of struggle characterized by a natural synt hesis of traditional and contemporary form and context. As an emblem of identity in post -colonial Nigeria, however, the doctrinal aesthetic of natural synthesis promoted by Okeke is not a simple combination of old and new its true nature is multi -tiered and specific to individual interpretation. Evident in Uche Okekes 1982 etch Ana, Asele and Badunka, natural synthesis represents a merger of uli design forms and Igbo cosmology a synthesis of traditional design and contemporary applications and a unification of compose and drawing in which theme... ...nd Nigerian Contemporary Art.Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C. 2002.Wilis, Elizabeth Anne. Uli Painting and individuation twentieth century de velopments in art In the Igbo speaking character of Nigeria. Ph.D thesi s at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Vols. 1 -2. 1997 Consulted Ejiogu, N.W. Body Decoration and Mural Painting in Oraifite and Aquleri Unpublished B.A. Thesis at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. 1971.Forde, D. and G.I Jones. The Ibo and Ibibio Speaking Peoples of South Eastern Nigeri International African Institute, London. 1962.McCal, tush C. Social Organization in Africa . Africa. Indiana University Press. Okeke, Uche.Creative Conscious. Asele Institute, Nimo, Anambra State, Nigeria. 1993. Otenberg, Simon. We are bonny Art Minded.Vol. XXI. No. 4. pg.58 -67. 1988.