October Rain Comes with Surprises

Mary Ekah

The Lagos chapter of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) is coming up with another edition of its annual exhibition, ‘October Rain’ this year. The exhibition is coming with a whole lot of surprises. One of such surprises is that for the very first time, SNA Lagos, will be collaborating with members of SNA Rivers State chapter for this year’s exhibition.

’October Rain’ is a usual programme on the calendar of the Society of Nigerian Artists. The exhibition has been on for several years and has been able to achieve various developments through it.

Scheduled to hold from Saturday, October 29 to Friday to November 4 at the Nike Gallery, Lekki, Lagos, with an opening by 4:00 pm on Saturday, October 29. This year’s edition tagged, ‘October Rain and New Frames’, is specifically dedicated to a late renowned visual artist and member of the group, Mr. Samuel Olagbaju who lived from October 15, 1939 – September 23, 2016.

“This year we are having a combined exhibition with the Rivers State chapter of SNA. This year exhibition will feature some new artists as well as renowned artists on the same stage,” the Chairman SNA, Lagos Chapter, Dotun Alabi said.

Another surprise to this year’s event will be the infusion of performance art in the visual art exhibition. So this year’s exhibition, Alabi revealed is going to feature performances by members of SNA that embrace performing art.

Coming with the theme, ‘Perspective of Change’, this, the SNA Lagos chairman said was purposely chosen to reflect the present situation of things in the country. “When we came up with theme, we wanted to see the different views that artists were going to exhibit as regards to the way they see the society and how they perceive change that has always been the hallmark of every government that comes on board, most especially for the present government. Is this change for better or a change for the worse? Because the change right now as we have witnessed in Nigeria, has affected us not just from the political point of view but also from the economical point of view. So, different people have different perspectives to change. For the common man the change might be for the worse while for the rich it might be for better and that is what we expect to see in various arts works that will be displayed at this year’s exhibition,” Alabi noted.

Speaking further, he said, “We all know what change means to Nigerian at this present time. So we want people to come with their personal artistic expression of their view of what change means to them and we are going to see a lot of visual expression in the area of change that we desire.”

Close to 50 artists will be exhibiting from SNA Lagos while close to 30 are expected from Rivers State chapter of the association and there is a tendency that the number will increase when the exhibition takes off.