Obiora Udechukwu

Rhythms of Transition, 1997, oil on canvas. Obiora Udechukwu While it may be easy to find in his recent work, a number of links to recent international artistic developments, the particulars of such links belong to the artist's explorations of both hitherto unexplored formal possibilities of uli, and his reconfiguration of his art to accommodate and encompass his experience as artist, poet and philosopher. 4 6 »Nk a Jo u r n al of Cont em p or ar y African Art T he Nigerian artist and poet Obiora Udechukwu is perhaps best known as one the who redefined and internationalized the uli art form. Much as his art has drawn from several sources, ranging from Chinese calligraphy to modern European and international esthetic stylelocate his art primarily within the borders of uli esthetic. Yet, while it may be easy to find in his recent work, a number of links to recent, international artistic developments, the particulars of such links belong to the artist's explorations of both hitherto unexplored formal possibilities of uli, and his reconfiguration of his art to accommodate and encompass his experience as artist, poet and philosopher. His recent paintings and installation art seem to indicate that Udechukwu is in the process of redefining the direction of the art of his matureyears. In the mid 1970s Udechukwu began what was to be more than a decade long process of refining the strategies of uli which had been defined by Uche Okeke in the beginning of the previous decade. Okeke had initiated modern uli when in his search for a new esthetic he sought to translate the mural and body decoration art of the Igbo into a contemporary idiom. He however concentrated on the lyrical Qualities of the predominantly linear body art form and the spatial organization of both the body and mural art. This attitude towards the traditional uli art form was taken up by Udechukwu and pushed to what could possibly be its logical conclusion. Until the early 1990s, Udechukwu's reputation as master of the sensitive line was built upon his eloquent, powerful drawings in which few, gestural lines engaged the pictorial space with a certain airiness. At the same time as his art seemed to celebrate the expressive capacity of clean, lyrical line his palette was spare leading many of his critics to conclude that he was anything but a colorist.1 As his recent work suggests, that reading of his color attitude comes from a misunderstanding of the nature of his project at the time. While in the past he concentrated on the rhetoric of line and space as seen in uli art, now he explores different aspects of uli. On the one hand he experiments with the techniques of delivery of the Igbo mural artists, on the other he reinterprets uli as an architectural art. This is evident in his two major installations at Bayreuth, Germany in 1995 and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire in J uly 1998. In his recent painting Udechukwu returns to the full palette which, as I have indicated elsewhere,2 was were he started from, prior to his uli experiments in the mid 1970s. Only now the colors have more vigor and are lexically richer. Also, the written word has become an essential part of his image making and narrative style in a way that is both new and intriguing . In 1995 Udechukwu took part in a six- theme exhibition project, CONFIGURA 2 in Erfurt Germany. The section he participated in was called "The Altar of Culture" in which artists from four other countries created installations in the confines of huge white cubicular boxes. For his own altar, Udechukwu rejected the white boxes which to him were too clinical and obtrusive in the Quiet, wooded part of the city close to the old, grand, Fischmarkt. He constructed the House of the Four Trees, an installation that took its name from its setting within an old courtyard bordered by four chestnut trees. The number of the trees that marked the space for Udechukwu's Erfurt installation is significant. Four represents completeness in Igbo culture where days are organized in four- day cycles, in addition, the adult human...