Imal Silva… Still the Same Artist with a Cause

 Okechukwu Uwaezuoke

Known to have hitherto deployed his art for public engagement and enlightenment—for such causes as raising awareness about people with disabilities, voluntary blood donation, and rape and sexual abuse, as well as maternal and child health—Imal Emmanuel Silva, in his most recent works, which were produced earlier this year, challenges the proclivity for urbanisation that disregards the natural environment.

In one of the paintings—an abstract offering titled “Vertical City for My Children!”—patterns of yellow, red, and green resembling shards of broken bottles are strewn against a grey backdrop. Here the artist seems to decry the anarchic urbanisation that favours grimy masonry over greenery, thus compromising the future of humanity by making no provision for the joy of communal living and exercise.

Indeed, isn’t it amazing how the one-time acolyte of the great nonagenarian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya, while excelling as a creative entrepreneurial maestro, deftly curates his profile as a committed artist? The Sri Lankan-born Abuja-based artist, whose last known solo exhibition—a retrospective, really—was presented last year and caused quite a stir in Ibadan, where he was raised, appears to have developed a penchant for peddling hope in these dire times.

That exhibition, which coincided with the opening of TECH Art Gallery, had the inspired title “The SILVA-lining: Imal Silva: The Man, His Art, and His Journey ”, a pun on his name, and left viewers with a nuanced message of hope for better times to come for the country.

Art, the Royal College of Art, London alumnus, once explained, has always been a theme song of his life since he, as a ten-year-old, migrated with his mother from Sri Lanka to Ibadan, where he attended the International School and the University of Ibadan. That his long residence in this south-western Nigerian city subsequently nourished his establishment of the Treasures4Life Art Gallery—often abbreviated as T4L—should therefore not come as a surprise.

Having conducted several workshops and held many exhibitions, Silva virtually became legendary in Ibadan for his art activism. He was a past executive of Alliance Française, Ibadan, a two-time judge at the Life in My City art competition, and a member of the Nigerian Field Society and Museum Society, in addition to his advisory role at the Oyo State Ministry of Information, Arts, and Culture. Furthermore, he has frequently appeared as a guest on national and international television networks to discuss art-related themes, and his work has been widely covered in national newspapers.