Samuel Ajobiewe’s Solo Exhibition Opens April 1 in Lagos

Yinka Olatunbosun

On Saturday, April 1, the artist Samuel Ajobiewe’s much-anticipated solo exhibition, titled The Indignant Eye, will open at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos. The exhibition, which features the artist’s recent works (produced in 2018 and 2022), will run until Friday, April 7. 

The event, meanwhile, is being put on by Red Heritage, a visual arts organisation created to offer guidance and support to artists, cultural practitioners, and other important figures in the African art ecosystem at different phases of their careers.

Interestingly, the perceived inequalities and the problematic socio-political institutions in the country are addressed in the body of work that will be on display at this show. Due to his deft handling of his subject matter, the artist has earned a spot among the most well-known Nigerian artists who take a more vocal approach to their work.

An earthy colour scheme and a delicate concern with the contrast of light and shadows, as seen in the representation of his subjects, are characteristics of this Yaba College of Technology, Lagos graduate’s distinctive visual language, which he has created over the course of his three-decade career. He examines the use of metaphorical pictures to describe actual occurrences and veiled reflections with archetypal meanings via esoteric links in a revolutionary way.

Talking about the exhibition, Ajobiewe says that it serves as a response to “the many disturbing situations in the country. A number of them are, our migrating masses who have left home for safer pastures, deliberate neglect of responsibilities and obligations by government officials without fear of consequences, and in recent years, the agitation for separation and division of the country from socio-political groups.”

The Indignant Eye exhibition is intended to inspire audiences to envision a new Nigeria and consider solutions to its sociopolitical problems. Based on modern Nigeria’s history, it provides fertile ground for destabilising tyrants and promoting long-term growth in the country.