You are invited for an Artist Talk on March 13th, 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm at Amy Kaslow Gallery.
"Chukwudinma Nsofor paints boldly, brushing fast moving shapes and intense color changes of human energy. You can almost see the traces of his hand lifting from the pigment. He calls the large-scale pieces documentary narratives, abstract canvases commanding longer looks that simply become immersive. And he has plenty on his mind.
A Nigerian Igbo crown prince from Oguta, where lakes meet rivers and Uli iconography has decorated bodies and murals since the Ninth Century, Chukwudinma migrated thousands of miles away to the Washington DC area. His computer screen here rolls images of a connected and communal village life back home.
His reference point is Africa’s most populated nation where hundreds of ethnic groups have long co-existed, often uneasily. Devastated and divided by colonialism, Nigeria gained independence in 1960, but its young democracy has suffered from systemically corrosive leaders who rig elections and abuse public power for personal gain. “Party Affiliates,” a dusty blush work from his “Ballot Boxes and Beasts of Burden” series, examines citizen agency as freedoms “disappear into ironclad control.” The work is an inescapable comparison to today’s United States.
In transit himself, Chukwudinma watches people move, individually and en masse, willingly and forced, and he divines their spaces and places, their intersections and directions. His “Citizens of Nowhere” series, he explains, captures strangers in a land, “the nostalgia of missing home, and creating a new life.” And “Runners,” powerfully juxtaposed in orange and deep blue, pops from the canvas. As with all of his work, the painter puts a premium on negative space, an openness germane to Uli geometrics and linear designs of his people.
Converting his formative years learning, and practicing rituals – the renderings, movements, and audibles– into current concepts like these works is “an awkward experience,” the artist concedes. “Being Nigerian, I move under the shadow of an uncomfortable stereotype,” referring to any number of generalizations. But discomfort feeds his artistic drive. “The titles and themes of my paintings are indicators, advocates of other, better ways of living and being.” And with striking color and form, he prods us to examine the canvas, the paper, and see it for ourselves, to learn, to research, to question.
In his Igbo language, Chukwudinma means “God is Good,” an ancestral name he chooses to carry because of its broad, almost universal appeal. “I know that there is a lot of work to be done. I live for the ways I will rediscover my culture and heritage.”
A University of Nigeria, Nsukka art department graduate, his mentors were luminaries of the iconic Uli practice and the early Igbo modernists. Chukwudinma landed in Lagos, where he wrote for the Comet Newspaper, taught art, and managed the African Foundation for the Arts. Importantly, he painted and distinguished himself as a leading contemporary artist, showing in New York and Abidjan galleries, at ArtX Lagos, the New York Art Fair, the Dak’ Art Biennale, Senegal, and beyond. We are proud to host Chukwudinma’s first solo exhibition in the US"
Culled from the AMY KASLOW GALLERY website. Click on the link to RSVP- https://www.amykaslowgallery.com/show/amy-kaslow-gallery-chukwudinma
I’m very proud of you cousin. I will surely visit your showroom soon.
Beautiful paintings , each telling their own stories