Muraina Oyelami

Last updated

Eesa of Iragbiji
Muraina Oyelami
Born (1940-02-21) 21 February 1940 (age 84)
Iragbiji, Osun State, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
Alma mater University of Ife
Movement Modernism, Osogbo Art

Chief Muraina Oyelami (born 21 February 1940) is a Nigerian painter and drummer of Yoruba descent. He was among the first generation of artists to come out of the Osogbo School of Art in the 1960s. He was a drummer and actor with the theatre company of Duro Ladipo. He taught traditional music and dance at Obafemi Awolowo University from 1976 to 1987. As a musician, he trained in the dùndún (talking drum) and the Batá drum. He was the chief of his hometown Iragbiji.

Contents

Early life

Muraina Oyelami was born on 21 February 1940 [1] in Iragbiji, Osun State. [2]

Drumming, theatre and arts

From 1963 to 1965, Oyelami undertook training in the dùndún (talking drum) from Oba Laoye, who was Timi of Ede. During the same time, he studied the Batá drum with Ayantunji Amoo of Okinni and Abeyefo of Iseyin. [3] He was a drummer and actor with the Duro Ladipo National Theatre, the theatre company of Yoruba dramatist Duro Ladipo. [2] He toured Europe as a member of the troupe, first to Germany for the Berlin Festival of Art in 1964 and then to the United Kingdom for the Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1965. [4]

"Georgina never told us what to paint; she just gave us materials and we didn't know what she was looking for. But we loved doing it...We never saw so much paint, so much color...The art workshop was a wonderful experience, because it taught us to see our own potential. I think that I can say that Bisi Fabunmu, Rufus, Twins Seven-Seven and myself, each discovered a new dimension in ourselves...Making a painting is really like going into a strange place, like an unknown territory and then you have nothing but your own integrity to guide you...The importance of the art workshop to us was that it gave us a sense of our own identity." [5]

Muraina Oyelami

In 1964, Oyelami attended the summer art school of the Mbari Mbayo Artists and Writers Club in Osogbo [2] where he attended a painting workshop given by Georgina Beier. [5] He began studying at the Osogbo Art School, founded by Georgina and Ulli Beier, and was among the first generation of Osogbo Art students; at the school he took printmaking and painting workshops in addition to working as a stage actor and master Yoruba drummer. [6]

In his visual art, Oyelami drew inspiration from the works of Kenyan printmaker Hezbon Owiti. [2] At his first exhibition in Edinburgh in 1967 his works were compared to those of Paul Klee and Amedeo Modigliani, though he was unfamiliar with European art. [2] [5] He was later compared to Georges Rouault [6] and attended the printmaking workshops of Ru Van Rossem in 1966 and 1972. [7]

Oyelami attended the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife, studying technical theatre with a specialisation in theatre design [6] and received a certificate in dramatic arts. [7] In 1973 he traveled to the New York where he had a fellowship and residency at the National Black Theatre in Harlem. [4] Oyelami taught traditional music and dance at Obafemi Awolowo University from 1976 to 1987. [6] [7] He was also a visiting professor at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. [3] Oyelami was also commissioned to create mosaics for Obafemi Awolowo University. His first pair of mosaics, on the Faculty of Health Science building in Ile-Ife, were completed in 1975. He completed a mosaic mural on the Iragbiji campus at Wema Bank Plc. in 1983. [4]

Oyelami plays both traditional and fusion music [4] and was a featured artist on the German band Embryo's 1985 album Embryo & Yoruba Dun Dun Orchester. [8] He was the musical director for and composed the score to the 1998 Royal Exchange Theatre production of the Wole Soyinka play Death and the King's Horseman . [4]

Oyelami is chief of his village, [6] having been made Eesa of Iragbiji [9] on 14 February 1993. [4]

In 2018, Oyelami founded the Abeni Visual and Performing Art Institute in Iragbiji. He serves as artistic director of the school. [10] The institute trains students in visual and performing arts, including drum making, textile design and printmaking. [11] [12]

Painting

As a first-generation member of the Osogbo Art School, [11] Oyelami is considered part of the Osogbo Art movement. His style is considered Modernist, [10] with his oil paintings displaying a direct sense of design, and a juxtaposition of subtle muted colours with strong lines. [2] [7] Oyelami's themes are influenced by Yoruba culture, [6] and the subject matter of his landscapes and portraits are often derived from daily life and individuals. [7] Oyelami's early oil paintings involved abstract representations of life in the city, [2] while by the 1980s his work had become more figurative, trending towards more generic themes. [2]

Oyelami has participated in dozens of solo and group exhibitions. His works are included in a number of collections. His 1971 painting Birds in the Garden is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. [6] [7] Oyelami's 1971 painting Village on the Hillside is in the Tyler Collection of Romanian and Modern Art at the University of Tasmania. [13] His works are also in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Lagos, the Studio Museum in Harlem, at the Lagos State House of Assembly, the private collection of Bola Ige, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the Staatlichen Kunsthalle in Berlin. [6]

Oyelami's works accompanied those from the collection of Susanne Wenger in a 2016 exhibition that served as a tribute to her life. [14] In 2017, his works were shown at an exhibition of Osogbo art in the United States [9] and at Art Dubai. [15]

Publications

Oyelami has written books on drumming and Yoruba culture. The 1993 monograph Abefe: An Autobiography of Muraina Oyelami was based on interviews of Oyelami, edited by Ulli Beier. In the text, Oyelami describes his youth, theatre in Ile-Ife, the Mbari-Mbayo workshop, and his residencies at Iwalewa-Haus. [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obafemi Awolowo</span> Nigerian politician (1909–1987)

Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo was a Nigerian nationalist and politician who played a key role in Nigeria's independence movement (1957–1960). Awolowo founded the Yoruba nationalist group Egbe Omo Oduduwa, and was the first Leader of Government Business and Minister of Local Government and Finance, and first Premier of the Western Region under Nigeria's parliamentary system, from 1952 to 1959. He was the official opposition leader in the federal parliament to the Balewa government from 1959–1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osogbo</span> Capital city of Osun State, Nigeria

Osogbo is a city in Nigeria. It became the capital city of Osun State in 1991. Osogbo city seats the Headquarters of both Osogbo Local Government Area and Olorunda Local Government Area. It is some 88 kilometers by road northeast of Ibadan. It is also 108 kilometres (67 mi) by road south of Ilorin and 108 kilometres (67 mi) northwest of Akure. Osogbo shares boundaries with Ikirun, Ilesa, Ede, Egbedore, Ogbomosho and Iragbiji and it is easily accessible from any part of the state because of its central nature. It is about 48 km from Ife, 32 km from Ilesa, 46 km from Iwo, 48 km from Ikire and 46 km from Ila-Orangun; the city had a population of about 200,000 people and an approximate land area of 126 km. The postal code of the area is 230.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osun</span> State of Nigeria

Osun, is a state in southwestern Nigeria; bounded to the east by Ekiti and Ondo states for 84 km and for 78 km respectively, to the north by Kwara State for 73 km, to the south by Ogun State for 84 km and to the west by Oyo State, mostly across the River Osun. Named for the River Osun—a vital river which flows through the state—the state was formed from the southeast of Oyo State on 27 August 1991 and has its capital as the city of Osogbo.

Olatunji Akin Euba, was a Nigerian composer, musicologist, and pianist.

Chief Ògúnwán̄dé "Wán̄dé" Abím̄bọ́lá is a Nigerian academician, a professor of Yoruba language and literature, and a former vice-chancellor of the University of Ife. He has also served as the Majority Leader of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Chief Abimbola was installed as Àwísẹ Awo Àgbàyé in 1981 by the Ooni of Ife on the recommendation of a conclave of Babalawos of Yorubaland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duro Ladipo</span> Nigerian playwright (1926–1978)

Durodola Durosomo Duroorike Timothy Adisa Ladipo, more commonly known as Duro Ladipo, was one of the best known and critically acclaimed Yoruba dramatists who emerged from postcolonial Africa. Writing solely in the Yoruba language, he captivated the symbolic spirit of Yoruba mythologies in his plays, which were later adapted to other media such as photography, television and cinema. His most famous play, Ọba kò so, a dramatization of the traditional Yoruba story of how Ṣango became the Orisha of Thunder, received international acclaim at the first Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1965 and on a Europe an tour, where a Berlin critic, Ulli Beier, compared Ladipọ to Karajan. Ladipo usually acted in his own plays.

Chief Horst Ulrich Beier, commonly known as Ulli Beier, was a German editor, writer and scholar who had a pioneering role in developing literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria, as well as literature, drama and poetry in Papua New Guinea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twins Seven Seven</span> Nigerian artist (1944–2011)

Twins Seven Seven, born Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki was a Nigerian painter, sculptor and musician. He was an itinerant singer and dancer before he began his career as an artist, first attending in 1964 an Mbari Mbayo workshop conducted by Ulli Beier and Georgina Beier in Osogbo. Twins Seven Seven went on to become one of the best known artists of the Osogbo School.

Chief Jimoh Buraimoh is a Nigerian painter and artist. Chief Buraimoh is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the 1960s workshops conducted by Ulli Beier and Georgina Beier in Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. Since then, he has become one of the best known artists from Osogbo.

Stephen Adebanji Akintoye, also known as S. Banji Akintoye, is a Nigerian-born academic, historian and writer. He attended Christ's School Ado Ekiti, Nigeria from 1951–1955, and studied history at the University College, Ibadan (1956–1961), and doctoral studies from 1963-1966 at the University of Ibadan, where he was awarded a PhD in History in 1966. He taught at the History Department at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, where he became a professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies from 1974-1977. He has also taught African History in universities in the United States including the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida; Montgomery County Community College, PA, and Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Akintoye has written four books, chapters in many joint books, and several articles in scholarly journals. He took a leading part for some time in the politics of Nigeria and served on the Nigerian Senate from 1979–1983 during the Second Republic. He currently lives in Cotonoue, Benin Republic. Akintoye is one of the current leading scholars on the history of the Yoruba people. His most recent work, A History of the Yoruba People, draws on decades of new findings and thinking on Yoruba studies that challenges some previously dominant notions about the origins of the Yoruba. This work dispels the Middle Eastern and Arabia origins propounded by such scholars as the late Samuel Johnson (1846–1901) and also gave prominence to the works on the Pre-Oduduwa Period by Ulli Beier among others. Akintoye also gave prominence to the role of Ilé-Ifè over that of Oyo. A reviewer, Wale Adebanwi, notes: "...this book directly contests and shifts th e focus of Yoruba history away from what many have called the Oyo-centric account of Samuel Johnson... Where Johnson avoids the creation myth that positions Ife as the sacred locus of Oduduwa's original descent and the orirun (creation-source), Akintoye, justifiably, restores Ile-Ife to its proper place as "ibi ojumo ti mon wa'ye" ..."

Bakare Gbadamosi is a Yoruba poet, anthropologist and short story writer from Nigeria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susanne Wenger</span> Austrian-Nigerian artist (1915–2009)

Susanne Wenger MFR, also known as Adunni Olorisha, was an Austrian-Nigerian artist and Yoruba priestess who expatriated to Nigeria. Her main focus was the Yoruba culture and she was successful in building an artist cooperative in Osogbo. She partnered with local artists in Osogbo to redevelop and redecorate the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove with sculptures and carvings depicting the various activities of the Orishas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronze Head from Ife</span> Sculpture from Ife

The Bronze Head from Ife, or Ife Head, is one of eighteen copper alloy sculptures that were unearthed in 1938 at Ife in Nigeria, the religious and royal centre of the Yoruba people. It is believed to represent a king. It was probably made in the 12th-13th century CE. The realism and sophisticated craftsmanship of the objects challenged the dismissive and patronising Western conceptions of African art. The naturalistic features of the Ife heads are unique and the stylistic similarities of these works "suggest that they were made by an individual artist or in a single workshop."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iwalewahaus</span>

Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth, is a place for the production and presentation of contemporary art. By doing exhibitions, academic research and teaching, by taking care of the collection and the archive as well as providing residencies for artists, recent developments in contemporary African and Diaspora culture are presented and refined together with artists and institutions. The mission of Iwalewahaus is to research, document and teach recent African culture. The focus is on visual arts, everyday culture, the media and music. The house provides space for lectures, conferences, concerts, film screenings and readings and is a vivid forum for artists, researchers, students of African studies and the interested public.

Emmanuel Olakunle Filani is a Nigerian educator and artist. His works are closely identified with the school of thought named Onaism, an art movement that is based on the fusion of the designs, ornamentation and motifs found in traditional Yoruba carvings and textiles with modern art pieces such as drawings and paintings. Filani is also a lecturer and an administrator – he was a provost of the Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta.

Moyo Okediji is an art historian, painter and artist whose works contains a number of icons and signifiers of the deep aspects of Yoruba culture. He was part of Ona, an art movement at Obafemi Awolowo University.

Abayomi Adebayo Barber was a Nigerian contemporary artist who was the mentor of the Abayomi Barber Art School in Lagos, Nigeria. He is an important modern art figure in Nigeria but less well known in the Western World. He is best known for the application of naturalism and surrealism methods in his art works. Some of his signature works include life sized busts of former Nigerian president, Murtala Mohammed and the former Oba of Ile-Ife, Adesoji Aderemi, another famous work is an oil painting of Shehu Shagari.

The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1961 by Ulli Beier, with the involvement of a group of young writers including Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. Mbari, an Igbo concept related to "creation", was suggested as the name by Achebe. Among other Mbari members were Christopher Okigbo, J. P. Clark and South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele, Amos Tutuola, Frances Ademola, Demas Nwoko, Mabel Segun, Uche Okeke, Arthur Nortje and Bruce Onobrakpeya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simeon Bamire</span> Nigerian academic (born 1959)

Adebayo Simeon Bamire is a Nigerian academic and professor of agricultural economics who is the 12th substantial Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, since 2022. He previously served as deputy vice chancellor academics.

Tola Wewe is a Nigerian artist.

References

  1. ↑ Wood, Molara [@molarawood] (21 February 2021). "Chief Muraina Oyelami, pioneer artist of the Osogbo Art Movement and Eesa of Iragbiji, is 81 today. He recently started the Abeni Visual & Performing Arts Institute (AVPAI). And today, he inaugurates the Oyelami Dance Company" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Campbell, Bolaji V. (21 March 2000). "Oyelami, Muraina". Oxford Art Online. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T096629. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Chief Muraina Oyelami, the Eesa of Iragbiji, Justice of the Peace (JP), Fellow of Theatre Arts (FTA), Member Society of Nigerian Artist (SNA)". Obatala Centre for Creative Arts. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Chief Muraina Oyelami: Member, Board of Trustees". Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding. Archived from the original on 31 January 2019. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 "Muraina Oyelami (Nigerian, born 1940): My girl". Bonhams. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Muraina Oyelami". Tyler Collection of Romanian and Modern Art: University of Tasmania. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Muraina Oyelami, born 1940, Nigeria". Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  8. ↑ Klein, Debra Lynn (2000). Yoruba Bàtá: Politics of Pop Tradition in Erin-Osun and Overseas. University of California, Santa Cruz. p. 236.
  9. 1 2 Garba, Kabir Alabi (17 April 2017). "50 years of Osogbo Art exhibition loud in America". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  10. 1 2 Utor, Florence (14 November 2018). "Artists, royal fathers storm Iragbiji for AVPAI's opening". Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 November 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  11. 1 2 Sowole, Tajudeen (20 December 2015). "Half A Century Of Brushing With Osogbo Master, Oyelami". The Guardian.
  12. ↑ Kolawole, Yinka (25 March 2020). "Empowering Osun Youths in Arts, Culture". This Day. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  13. ↑ "Village on the Hillside". Tyler Collection of Romanian and Modern Art: University of Tasmania. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  14. ↑ Eaton, Maynard (22 February 2016). "Osogbo: Art and Heritage and Controversy". Saporta Report. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  15. ↑ Sowole, Tajudee (27 March 2017). "At Art Dubai 2017, African artists boost sales". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 November 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  16. ↑ Oyelami, Muraina (1993). Ulli Beier (ed.). Abefe: An Autobiography of Muraina Oyelami. Bayreuth: Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth. OCLC   5827185.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.