Oluseyi Soyege: Making History through Painting, Sculpting

With over 25 years of experience, 109 artworks created and 98 sold, as well as nine awards in his kitty, Oluseyi Soyege, a Nigerian painter and sculptor is certainly living his dreams. Recently, he made history as the only Nigerian artist who participated in the just-concluded Colour: Story exhibition 2021 held in Houston Texas, United States of America, Chiemelie Ezeobi reports

For Oluseyi Soyege, who doubles as a painter and sculptor, his journey into art has borne fruition- from awards to commendations, he has made history in his 25 years of art experience having churned out 109 art works with 98 sold, as well as nine awards over the years.

He recently made history as the only Nigerian artist who participated in the just-concluded Colour: Story exhibition 2021 held in Houston Texas, United States of America.

Soyege, a professional artist of over a decade, is responsible for producing stunning high quality artwork and contributing unique perspective to the overall display concept of his projects.

Focusing on the sensual nature of art, Soyege uses colour, texture and symbols to depict his works.

Mostly abstract and hyper realistic in nature, his works explores the relationship amongst textures shapes and colours. He is especially captivated with using scrap materials to creatively capture images.

Collaboration

The Colour: Story 2021 is a dynamic community event, which featured art opening, reading and poetry slam. At the exhibition, visual arts were paired with poetry. The collaboration saw the work of 20 artists being paired with local, national, and international poets. The poets read their work live at the opening. Each piece of visual art in the exhibit was inspired by and contained words of the poetry of a single writer.

At the exhibition, Soyege’s paintings, Colorful and Solace were paired with the poetry of Rachel Brown titled She and A church Mother’s Hat by Je’ni Barret.

The event, which started on April 17, was created by Houston visual artists Leslie Gaworecki and Marlo Saucedo to bridge literary and visual creative worlds. It ended on May 8 at the Spring Street Studios on Spring St, Houston.

Experience

Soyege, who was educated at the Houston Community College and the Yaba College of Technology, is also an Art tutor who creates three-dimensional and two- dimensional art works with tools on stones, plaster, metals, wood, plates, acrylic etc.

He works with tools such hammer, chisels and gouges and creates abstract sculptures and paintings to be displayed in public establishments. He uses manufactured or raw materials to form artworks and can work and interact smoothly and effectively in a team – oriented environment. Essentially, he is also capable of working remotely on a customer’s site.

Exhibitions

For exhibitions, he boasts of solo exhibitions like “Our Environment 1997”, “Our Time 2005”, and group exhibition like “Throwing Stones at the Glass House – 1998”. Others include Midtown Houston – Art In The Park February 9, 2019; Pancake and Bronze – Austin April 12, 2019; Midtown Houston – April 6, 2019; Imperial Art Alliance @ Heritage Museum – April 27, 2019; and Masur Museum – Monroe Louisiana – 2019.

Awards

For awards, he won the Ogie Le Meridian Award in 2007; the Club Award in 2014, Best Artist Gate Design in 2002; Imperial Art Alliance @ Heritage Museum – April 27, 2019: First in Abstract Work and also First in Pastel Work.

Work Dynamism

Speaking about his work on Sawyeryards.com, the artist delved into the intricacies behind his works. He said: “My work explores the relationship between synesthesia, most of abstract and scrap materials. Also, it frequently includes dynamic, sweeping brush strokes of acrylic paint or black ink on canvas that characterize much of my art.

“It’s often noted that my paintings/sculpted works convey a controlled but dynamic sense of movement. New synergies are generated from both traditional and modern structures. Mistakes or accidents often turn out to be fortuitous and usually remain. Ever since as a teenager, I have been fascinated by unrelenting divergence of the human condition.

“What starts out as hope soon becomes finessed hegemony of power, leaving only a sense of chaos and the possibility of a real world .As shimmering forms become frozen through boundaries and repetitive practice, the viewer is left with an epitaph for the edges of our condition.”