[ad_1]
Stand in any metropolitan hall and ask the artwork scene denizens there what they learn about Aniekan Udofia. Some would possibly checklist the 33-year-old among the many most proficient visible artists of his technology, with nationwide consideration on his work in hip hop magazines corresponding to XXL, Vibe and The Supply.
And on an area degree, others would possibly even christen the Nigerian artist as “the face of the D.C. artwork motion that mixes political themes with a hip-hop aesthetic.” However it doesn’t matter what you hear, Aniekan will let you know himself they solely scratch the floor of who he actually is.
For starters, meet his mother and father, Dr. George and Edna Udofia. They got here to the U.S. from Nigeria for varsity whereas Civil Warfare raged again of their house nation (the Nigeria-Biafra Warfare lasted from July 6, 1967 to Jan. 15, 1970). Nigerians first got here to the USA to attend American universities, meaning to return house, writes Kalu Ogbaa in his ebook “The Nigerian Individuals.” However for the primary time in Nigeria historical past, the civil struggle “turned the reason for immigration, and extra college students from the war-ravaged Jap Nigeria simply made good instances for his or her immigration to the USA.” So George and Edna studied regulation and nursing, respectively, at universities in Washington, D.C. They settled down and began a household. Aniekan, the second of 5 kids and the primary son within the household, was born on Nov. 26, 1975.
Ogbaa, professor of English and Africana Research at Southern Connecticut State College, continues: “The gloomy sociopolitical and financial circumstances in Nigeria ensuing from their civil struggle have been so insufferable for Easterners that everyone needed to flee the nation.” By 1980, the variety of Nigerian immigrants within the U.S. rose to 25,528. As well as, the emergence of navy dictatorships, the abuse of energy and denial of human rights additionally led to a mass exodus of educated personnel in college establishments from Nigeria. By 1990, the variety of Nigerians within the U.S. greater than doubled to 55,350. However as a substitute of following the pattern, George and Edna determined to whisk their kids away from their start place in Northwest D.C. to Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state in 1982.
Aniekan, who was 7 on the time of the journey, is of the Ibibio individuals, certainly one of greater than 250 ethnic teams in Nigeria – the three hottest being Yoruba, Ibo (or Igbo) and Hausa-Fulani. Situated in southeastern Nigeria, primarily within the Cross River state, the Ibibio are rainforest cultivators of yams, taro, and cassava. They export largely palm oil and palm kernels; they’re additionally famous for his or her skillful wooden carving.
Again in Nigeria, George taught French in highschool, and Edna was a well being educator. That they had excessive hopes for his or her first son, Aniekan. “As a patriarchal society, sons are educated to be sturdy and assertive and to develop management qualities that can allow them to inherit the management roles of their fathers at house, ought to such fathers die or change into previous, unwell, or infirm,” Ogbaa writes. As well as, “They’re speculated to be suppliers of their relations’ wants and to offer them safety in addition to emotional and financial safety always.” In keeping with Aniekan, his mother and father thought he was destined to go to varsity and main in one thing extra sensible than artwork, or choose up a commerce and work along with his palms. However as a substitute, he embraced a motion from abroad.
Having grown up on highlife, a musical style that originated in Ghana within the 1900s earlier than ultimately spreading to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and different West African international locations by 1920, Aniekan was accustomed to legends corresponding to Ibo highlife innovator Sonny Okosun and Victor Olaiya, a Yoruba singer and trumpeter. However hip hop captured the then-17-year-old in methods highlife could not. “It was the expression of it…Even with Slick Rick, how he tells the story,” Aniekan remembers. “He is rapping, however it’s like he is singing…the artwork of twisting phrases.” (He likened listening to Kool G Rap, a exact wordsmith, to “enjoying Tetris at high-speed.”) Aniekan’s first encounter with the artwork type was by way of a buddy, who handed him a Child ‘N Play cassette tape in 1992. Different encounters got here by way of pals who received VHS tapes of Yo! MTV Raps from their relations within the U.S. “We did not have a VCR,” Aniekan says. “It was like one particular person within the hood had one, so we might all go 15 deep to that particular person’s crib, hang around, watch these movies and get all hype, making an attempt to speak like the blokes within the movies.”
On the identical time, document outlets began popping up throughout Uyo, a metropolis that turned a capital of Akwa Ibom State on Sept. 23, 1987. “You had DJs who had spots like that and so they put these large audio system exterior,” Aniekan says. “That is the place we used to hang around.” Different hang-outs have been barbershops, which often consisted of a closet-sized house with a chair, an indication, a comb and a few clippers. Some barbers have been lucky sufficient to show their humble beginnings right into a franchise. One such barber was “Massive Stuff,” who had three outlets in business areas all through Uyo.
On the time, it was customary for barbers to fee native artists to create tariffs and posters for his or her outlets. Massive Stuff commissioned an artist that fully modified Aniekan’s life. By way of this artist, the budding hip hop head would perceive the ability of expression by way of illustrations. “It was a man named Arabian…He would do shit and you’d simply have a look at the piece [amazed],” Aniekan says. “He had a variety of creativity.” He remembers Arabian incorporating hip hop kinds, with guys wearing hoodies and posing within the trendy rides of the time. “The fashion was so loopy the way in which he did it. Each final one he did was completely different.” There was a worth checklist, the place a man had a finger over his mouth whereas one other hand pointed to a worth checklist painted in what regarded like a gap within the wall. One other one was an illustration of three guys posted up exterior a properly – one man on a mobile phone, the opposite on look-out whereas the third pulled a worth checklist out of the properly. “His creativeness was simply one thing loopy,” Aniekan says. “Loopy!”
Nonetheless, his hopes of discovering a mentor in Arabian have been dashed after they met in 1995. Till that time, Aniekan would stroll round with a sketchbook, searching for work that Arabian illustrated. “I’d go attempt to copy it and apply at house,” Aniekan says. Noticing the younger artist’s curiosity, Massive Stuff gave Aniekan an Arabian piece from his store to take house and research. “So I went and studied it and tried to determine how he used the colour, what sort of shade he was utilizing.” (“Was it watercolor or crayons?” he puzzled). This was between 1994 and 1997, what he known as his “research period.”
It is the period he practiced the “photo-realistic” fashion of drawing. He experimented till he got here up along with his personal fashion of drawing faces with shade pencils and ink, after which pasting them over a distinct background. He was anxious when Massive Stuff took him to Arabian’s house in 1995. “Once I lastly met him, I used to be all groupie-fied,” Aniekan says. “I get to fulfill him and I am all shy.” The magic quickly wore off, when Aniekan mentioned Arabian had promised to attract him one thing. “He by no means actually received round to it. It simply became me continuously going over there and him blowing me off.”
He turned that discouragement into willpower and set out on a one-man mission to determine how Arabian did it. Within the course of, Aniekan slowly made a reputation for himself by drawing numerous haircut kinds and promoting it to barbers. He began arising along with his personal ideas for barbershop posters. In an earlier creation, he took a bit of board and drew a hand slicing hair with an arrow pointing within the path of the barber’s chair. “Folks would see it from down the hill and they’d know a barber was proper there,” Aniekan remembers. In alternate, the barber gave him $50 for the poster. Aniekan’s goal was to get his title, like Arabian’s, throughout Uyo. He quickly turned a sought-after artist amongst native barbers asking him, “Yo, might you draw me some haircuts or no matter.”
His recognition, nevertheless, wasn’t sufficient to impress his mother and father, nor quell their needs for him to meet his duties as first son. “I went to technical colleges [and] vocational colleges; they have been making an attempt to vary my thoughts,” Aniekan says. However all over the place he went, he noticed individuals as captivated with their fields as he was about artwork. In the course of the 17-year battle along with his mother and father, he wrote letters to an aunt that lives in D.C. After a number of correspondences, she granted his request by sending him a airplane ticket to return and take a look at his hand within the U.S. artwork trade. He got here to D.C. in 1999, on the age of 24. Since he is been right here, he is captured the nationwide consideration of clothes designers and magazines – now not the brand new fish splashing round within the nationwide artwork scene. He is created designs for And 1, an city athletic put on firm, and was the premiere artist for the D.C.-based Native Tongue City Attire line.
As well as, his works have been featured in numerous city publications corresponding to Rime, Elemental, DC Pulse and Frank 151. His illustrations additionally graced the album covers of hip hop artists corresponding to Critically Acclaimed and Flex Mathew, in addition to the covers of books and hip hop journals.
In 2004, Aniekan joined Art work Mbilashaka (AM) Radio, a free band of 4 to 10 visible artists and a DJ. They’re contracted by company purchasers to create a 7 x 5 inventive interpretation of their emblem in entrance of a dwell viewers. As part of this group, Aniekan labored on initiatives for purchasers together with Pink Bull, Heineken, Honda, Present TV, Timberland and Adidas.
He makes use of hip hop themes as social commentary on points he really feel are left lingering corresponding to faith, gender wars (“Is homosexuality proper or mistaken? Who’s to decide on?”) and racism. Additionally they give attention to American consumerism. In certainly one of his controversial items, former President George W. Bush is in a number of poses, holding machine weapons. On his shirt: “Bought Oil?”
A few of his work was controversial sufficient to attract criticism from viewers, and a few galleries have even requested him to take down his work. Even nonetheless, his fashion of “telling the reality” is one most individuals can admire. In a June editorial evaluation, Rhome Anderson (aka DJ Stylus) likened Aniekan to an area treasure. “From murals round city to his dwell improvised portray at musical occasions, Udofia is as a lot a fixture within the city arts scene because the DJs, vocalists, producers and musicians,” Anderson writes on washingtonpost.com. “As a part of the Phrases, Beats and Life’s ‘Remixing the Artwork of Social Change’ teach-in, Udofia was commissioned to craft a very new collection of items.”
On a Tuesday afternoon, Aniekan is tough at work on a brand new fee. His one-room residence on seventeenth Road NW doubles as his ware home and artwork studio. Cross the edge and also you stroll in the direction of a stash of comedian books neatly stacked alongside numerous hip hop and artwork magazines. Go searching, and you may see a work-in-progress set on an easel in the midst of his kitchen – paintings lining the wall alongside the doorway, above his cupboards and into his bed room. His most up-to-date present, The Illness 3, opened at Dissident Show on H Road NE in June. Aniekan needed the present to be a departure from his fashionable hip hop-themed works. His friends’ reactions diverse. “It was good and dangerous. There have been some individuals who have been like, ‘I am not feeling this new, monochromatic, one-color-themed, loopy stuff,'” he remembers. “However then there have been individuals who have been like, ‘Wow! That is really dope.’ It is a stretch and I really feel I have to have a tendency extra in the direction of that aspect.”
Trying round his kitchen, a reporter observed a photograph of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer. Within the paintings, three completely different Felas tackle completely different hues – a blue Fela seems to be up at a black and white Fela who’s enjoying a saxophone. Within the background, a silver Fela raises his arms in a victory pose by way of a top level view of Africa. When requested if Nigeria or components of his Ibibio tribe ever work their approach into his work, Aniekan seems to be up from a sketch to rigorously contemplate his reply. “If I select to do a selected again house form of theme”-such because the EVOLUTION OF CULTURE present, which opened April 3 at Wisconsin Overlook on Wisconsin Avenue NW- “that is once I often carry out these traits of the place I am from,” Aniekan says. “It is extra of a selection.”
It is a selection he feels that musicians and different artists ought to have the proper to train with out being labeled cultural sell-outs, or worst. Take Fela, the Afrobeat music pioneer and human rights activist. He did not begin out because the political maverick he is referred to as immediately. “He was into music…he began off with highlife, which he grew up into,” Aniekan says. When Fela observed some social and financial points went unaddressed, his music turned his bullhorn – “the place he began simply banging on the presidents” and corrupt politicians. “That took him to a different degree,” Aniekan says. “He wasn’t writing nearly Nigeria; what he wrote was just about Africa, itself, and the world.”
That reference to the world is what Aniekan is searching for along with his artwork. He is aware of If he places his artwork in a field labeled “African artwork,” it will slim the scope of his work. The identical factor if he solely did “hip hop” work. So what does he do? He pushes himself with every portray. Aniekan says, “As a visible artist, it is for individuals to see your development.”
[ad_2]
Source by Alan W. King