Five Artists and the Metaphor of Blurred Lines 

Exploring the blurred lines between reality and perception, a group exhibition featuring five emerging artists opens at a Port Harcourt gallery on Saturday. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke reports 

Even a seemingly straightforward title for an exhibition like A Thin Line can still so easily lend itself to a penumbra of conjectures. And that is especially because it nudges viewers’ musings—albeit subtly—beyond the scope of their superficial perception of everyday realities. “It reminds us of the almost subtle distinctions between things, situations, and/or experiences,” its curator Primrose Ochuba-Adekemi affirms.

Ochuba-Adekemi hopes to nudge viewers’ sensibilities towards deeper insights that lurk just below the surface of the apparent reality. This is by curating an eclectic mix of creative whims expressed in the offerings of a coterie of five artists for an exhibition that opens on Saturday, September 7, at Delaroke Art Gallery on Williams Jumbo Close, Old GRA, Port Harcourt.

The two-week event is the first in a series of exhibitions that Delaroke Art Gallery plans to organise between September and December with a view to spotlighting several emerging artists. The project’s ultimate goal is to preserve the art scene of the oil-rich state, which preens itself on being the country’s treasure base.

In the meantime, she draws attention to a shared medium and style among the artists despite their disparate backgrounds, which invites viewers to delve further into the works’ nuanced meanings and symbolism. To bring attention to the surprisingly similar aspects of their studio work across their diverse locations requires a subtle curatorial touch. 

Using metaphors like cloth, colour psychology, line dexterity, and texture presence, the remarkable quintet—which includes guest artist Obiora Anamaleze as well as Sophia Chioma Azoige, Moses Ndubuzo, Paschal Ugwu, and Davies Ben—brilliantly illustrates the significance of ‘thin lines’ in their experiences. Their paintings, as Ochuba-Adekemi notes, offer ample evidence that thin lines can function as powerful messengers for connection and storytelling.

Beyond the initial impression of its kitschy contemporaneity, the exhibition unarguably attests to the artists’ profound creative visions. As for the ideas beneath these visions, they transcend their apparent hasty expression in forms that hardly do justice to what could have been stirring in the depths of their innermost being. However, while this introspective tone may be justified by artistic license, it may also have resulted in a retroactive assignment of significance rather than an organic emergence of meaning during the creative process. 

Notwithstanding the potential pitfalls of their approach, the artists may have successfully earned their audience’s creative trust through their artistic vision. A compelling example is Obiora Anamaleze’s “Ife Nkili,” a painting that depicts a svelte female figure in the foreground, flimsily clad in a negligée in her boudoir. Framed at the top-right corner in the background are two other female figures—one poised to capture the moment for posterity with a camera while the other is sultry, flaunting her bare shoulders and back.This intimate scene celebrates the modern Nigerian woman.The feminine figure, endowed with the richness and elegance of melanin skin, reflects cultural representation, grace, and confidence that stem from her background. Through this and other paintings, Anamaleze explores themes of identity and cultural pride, paying tribute to African heritage. 

Azoige’s “Trials and Triumphs,” on the other hand, is an intriguing acrylic on fabric portrait with the subtitle “A Portrait of Resilience.” An enigmatic maiden, sporting a blue headscarf and lost in her musings, elicits the viewer’s curiosity to explore the stormy world simmering beneath her Sphynx-like serenity. Thus, with this semi-realistic composition, the artist deftly dangles enticingly before the audience the beauty of self-possession and the hard-earned tranquilly after resolutely battling one’s way through life’s existential turbulence.

Somehow, an odyssey of resilience gleams through virtually all the paintings at the exhibition, eliciting a slew of speculations about the artists’ personal journeys and blurring the lines between their visual individualities. Moses Ndubuzo’s creative journey, for instance, has not exactly been a cakewalk. It has seemed like a seesaw between hope and adversity. Before finding his voice in stylised figurative paintings, inspired by basket weaving, he had faced several moments of self-doubt and mood swings that threatened his artistic path. His paintings, especially those in his Blind Spot series—“Beyond the Headlines,” “Teach a Man to Fish,” “Dreamers,” and “Believe”—are only the latest expressions of his story of tenacity and artistic evolution.

This thin line between struggle and triumph is further underscored by Ndubuzo’s close friendship with Paschal Ugwu, whose own stylised acrylic paintings—“Crossroads,” “Wait a Minute,” and “Na Serious”Matter”—feature male figures with exaggerated eyes and protruding noses, hinting at inner turmoil. This artistic kinship reveals a shared journey of self-discovery and creative perseverance as both artists navigate the complexities of their inner worlds through their work.

Then there is Davies Ben, who has a similar penchant for stylisation and expresses his creativity through the vibrant realm of abstract expressionism. By seamlessly merging traditional African iconography with modern contemporary techniques, he creates a distinct visual language that delivers fascinating stories about cultural legacy and innovation. Ben’s art exemplifies a dynamic blend of the past and present, where bold colours and expressive forms converge to create a fresh narrative of African identity. 

This exhibition at Delaroke Art Gallery, which has been in existence for about five years, should stir conversations around the concept of ‘a thin line’ through its diverse range of paintings. Aficionados should therefore expect a nuanced conversation that delves into the multiple meanings and perceptions of life and living, revealing the complexities of the human experience.