THE ARTIST AND HIS CLASS
The wall of the boardroom at the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos was graced with the winning work of Erasmus Onyishi, the Grand Prize winner, National Art Competition 2014. It was the second edition of the “Meet the Artist” which began last year. Initiated by African Artists’ Foundation, a non- profit art organisation, the session was designed as part of the organisation’s art mentoring programme to develop art appreciation and skills in young people. The Creative Art department has three special areas namely theatre, music and visual arts. One afternoon, the students drawn from the three divisions, received Onyishi who had a lot to impart.
Onyishi studied Sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He has participated in over 30 exhibitions, locally and internationally. He is known as an experimentalist with a penchant for visual poetry. He currently teaches Sculpture at the Federal University, Lafia in Nasarawa State.
Like many students who study art today, Onyishi’s first love was law. But he gave up on legal education to pursue his artistic ambition. He did the mandatory national youth service at the Cross River University of Technology where he was retained to teach. Reflecting on his early works, Onyishi saw them as means to an end.
“My earlier art works are utilitarian art, that is, art that is functional. You know that Calabar is known for carnival. A Warri man came to my stand one day and asked: Bros ye, how much be dis? I said N15,000. He said: “Shoo, na DVD?’’ As an artist, you have to survive. That was why I had to start making utilitarian items. I have won awards with them at the university art competitions. I began producing chairs with mangrove wood. I made mirrors and clocks. I called that stage of my career hand to mouth stage,’’ he told the students of the department.
He further encouraged the students to brace up for the economic challenge of being an artist in Nigeria, stating that most established artists had undergone tough times before reaching the pinnacle of their career.
“When you hear that Olu Amoda has sold a work for N3 million, it may take a while for you to get to that level. By starting from the scratch doing the things I see around here, that is how you get there. I was retained at the university to state teaching so I started earning salary quite early. In Nigeria, only very few artists practise full time. Others have other jobs. Most artists are poor. We live a life of fantasy.’’
Onyinshi revealed to the students that art is for talented ones and only the dogged ones survive. In 2009, he met Yinka Sangotoye who, as he student, won the National Art Competition. Onyishi had entered the competition as a lecturer but did not win. Instead, Sangotoye won. He said his success as a young artist is tied to commitment at an early stage.
“If you are a fine art student in your final year and you have not sold any work till date, it will be difficult for you. I am not here to tell you what you want to hear. I am here to tell you the truth,’’ he said.
His award winning work: “Lines, Patches and Pathos” touches the ironies between the facts and rep- resentations, like refuse or plastic waste that are used as part of the media for the work.
“Just like the irony of harmful beauty in the images of diseases viewed from a microscope, the killer is beautiful. Thus, beauty is relative and could have ugliness as its vapour trail. Plastic waste is my principal medium. Plastic wastes are the refugees; the used and abused ‘ useless ones’, the victims of violenceinduced displacements, which I recover and entrust with a visual eloquence to enjoy the freedom of speech,’’ stated Onyishi.
For beauty teachnology, plastic represents recreation. A lot of celebrities and others with disposable incomes have benefited from plastic surgeries to enhance certain physical features or correct defective ones. Some have erroneously disfigured their natural looks with the help of incompetent surgeons and in some instances, human faces have become permanently expressionless, rendering their owners incapable of smiling heartily. Plastic in Onyishi’s works are mostly waste- turned- wealth.
Onyishi who is also the winner of Originality Prize in the 2013 edition of LIMCAF added that “wastes are churned out always. Creative contingencies could be in place to harness them, always. This creative intervention availed me the opportunity of being directly attuned to the feelings of the society.’’
Other works he showed to the students include Jamboree and Halleluyah which is 8.5 feet in height and made of mangrove wood.
In 2007, Onyinshi got a contract from Julius Berger to produce carvings for Craft Village, Tinapa, Calabar. He had unwittingly set a stage for this contract when he opened an art studio, HailMary Art Studio there.
The students, who initially remained quiet during the question and answer session, grew vivacious towards the end of the interaction and even spent more time with the artist long after the session ended.