Beyond Boundaries: Exploring Artistic Expressions at the ‘Best of Ife’ @30 Exhibition.
Come Sunday 3rd of December to Saturday 9th of December, 2023, arts lovers and the alumni of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) from Arts Department will showcase 50 Art works in a celebration of the relevance and reflection of the arts in Nigeria.
Holding at Fobally Art World Africa,
Lekki Phase1, Lagos, the event will show the aesthetic and beautiful ambience of the facility which will house different assortment of pieces of arts.
The Arts Department of the University of Ife; now Obafemi Awolowo University, has produced graduates spanning five decades.
In a media briefing held in Lagos, Kunle Filani, Professor of Visual Arts and Aesthetics at the African American University in Porto Novo and Canada, stated that the exhibition which has lasted 29 years will have another celebration of vision and originality.
Prof Filani who noted that there is a growing support and patronage for the arts and artists, stated that this has inspired creatives to deplore more of their potentials and take the career more serious as it’s a billion dollar industry in western world.
“It wasn’t for fun that the University is hailed as “Great Ife”. The cognomen was coined to depict the well-acknowledged and robust academic stamina of the graduates.
The curriculum of the Fine Arts Department was strengthened with courses in the humanities and the social sciences; thereby luring the students to a more theoretical exposition. It is therefore not a surprise that the stylistic trends that graduated from the department have espoused over the years are beyond skill acquisition; rather, the creative tendencies are scholarly and cultured.
“The “Best of Ife” series of exhibitions that began in 1993 was to serve as a constant reminder to the Ife art graduates that while Onaism as an art concept should thrive, the art school should not be pigeonholed. Therefore, any artist who exemplified innovation and consistency was encouraged to follow such personal trends,” says Filani.
The don noted that the ‘Best of Ife’ yearly exhibitions ran for many years and anchored by remarkable individual and collective Ife art graduates.
He added, “The Ife Art graduates are now well-established among Contemporary artists all over the globe. They have excelled in stylistic articulation and the use of new and iconic materials. The content of their works continues to promote socio-political ideologies and didactic intellectualization of indigenous concepts.”
The creative director of Fobally Art World Africa, Mrs Folashade Abiola says the vision of the arts firm’ alligns with that of Best of Ife art exhibition. “Ife Alumnus Students are known for their works in arts and industry. At Fobally Art World African, we identify with the impact the arts graduates also the Onaism that they espouse. We represent not just Lagos, Nigeria but Africa and we are set to showcase a hybrid of global standard exhibition”.
