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The Nsukka group is the name given to a group of Nigerian artists associated with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The Nsukka group was known for working to revive the practice of uli and incorporate its designs into contemporary art using media such as acrylic paint, tempera, gouache, pen and ink, pastel, oil paint, and watercolor. Although traditionally uli artists were female, many of the artists of the group were male. Some were poets and writers in addition to being artists. [1]
The Nsukka group evolved as a trend that can be sensed in the works of some African artists. It usually reveals itself an original mix of cubism and primitive arts. [1]
In October 1997, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution launched the exhibition The Poetics of the Line: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group, which also was the inaugural exhibition of the Sylvia H. Williams Gallery. [2]
The University of Nigeria, commonly referred to as UNN, is a federal university located in Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria. Founded by Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1955 and formally opened on 7 October 1960, the University of Nigeria has three campuses in Enugu State– Nsukka, Enugu, and Ituku-Ozalla – and the Aba campus in Abia State.
The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African art from both Sub-Saharan and Arab North Africa, 300,000 photographs, and 50,000 library volumes. It was the first institution dedicated to African art in the United States, and remains the largest collection. The Washington Post called the museum a mainstay in the international art world and the main venue for contemporary African art in the United States.
Sam Gilliam is an African-American color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. Gilliam is associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C. area artists that developed a form of abstract art from color field painting in the 1950s and 1960s. His works have also been described as belonging to abstract expressionism and lyrical abstraction. He works on stretched, draped and wrapped canvas, and adds sculptural 3D elements. He is recognized as the first artist to introduce the idea of a draped, painted canvas hanging without stretcher bars around 1965. This was a major contribution to the Color Field School.
Uli (Uri) are the curvilinear traditional designs drawn by the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. These designs are generally abstract, consisting of linear forms and geometric shapes, though there are some representational elements. Traditionally, these are either stained onto the body or painted onto the sides of buildings as murals. Designs are frequently asymmetrical and are often painted spontaneously. Uli is generally not sacred, apart from those images painted on the walls of shrines and created in conjunction with some community rituals. In addition, uli is not directly symbolic but instead focused on the creation of a visual impact and decorating the body of the patron or building in question.
Ada Udechukwu is a Nigerian artist and poet associated with the Nsukka group.
Tayo Adenaike was born in 1954 and he is currently living in Nigeria, he is a Nigerian painter.
El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria. He has drawn particular international attention for his "bottle-top installations". These installations consist of thousands of aluminum pieces sourced from alcohol recycling stations and sewn together with copper wire, which are then transformed into metallic cloth-like wall sculptures. Such materials, while seemingly stiff and sturdy, are actually free and flexible, which often helps with manipulation when installing his sculptures.
Obiora Udechukwu is a Nigerian painter and poet.
Chike Aniakor is a Nigerian painter. A native of Abatete, Aniakor received his first artistic training at Ahmadu Bello University, receiving his master's degree in 1974. He received a doctorate in art history from Indiana University Bloomington in 1978, writing his dissertation on Igbo architecture. He has taught art and art history at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, since 1970, becoming a member of the Nsukka group. More recently, he has been a fellow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of Howard University.
Christopher Uchefuna Okeke, known as Uche Okeke, was a modern Nigerian artist.
Igbo art is any piece of visual art originating from the Igbo people. The Igbo produce a wide variety of art including traditional figures, masks, artifacts and textiles, plus works in metals such as bronze. Artworks from the Igbo have been found from as early as 9th century with the bronze artifacts found at Igbo Ukwu. With processes of colonization and imperialism, the vocabulary of fine art and art history came to interact with established traditions. Therefore, the term can also refer to contemporary works of art produced in response to global demands and interactions.
Nnenna Okore is an artist who works both in Nigeria and the United States. Her largely abstract sculptures are inspired by textures, colors and forms within her immediate milieu. Okore's work frequently uses flotsam or discarded objects to create intricate sculpture and installations through repetitive and labor-intensive techniques. She learned some of her methods, including weaving, sewing, rolling, twisting and dyeing, by watching local Nigerians perform daily tasks. Most of Okore's work explores detailed surfaces and biomorphic formations, and her work has been shown in galleries and museums in and outside of the United States. She has won several international awards, including a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2012.
Marcia Kure is an American-based Nigerian artist and member of the University of Nigeria-based Nsukka School known primarily for her mixed media paintings and drawings that engage with postcolonial existentialist conditions and identities.
Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching non-category [sic]" are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression? Western scholars and curators have made numerous attempts at defining contemporary African art in the 1990s and early 2000s and proposed a range of categories and genres. They triggered heated debates and controversies especially on the foundations of postcolonial critique. Recent trends indicate a far more relaxed engagement with definitions and identity ascriptions. The global presence and entanglement of Africa and its contemporary artists have become a widely acknowledged fact that still requires and provokes critical reflection, but finds itself beyond the pressure of self-justification.
Chika Okeke-Agulu is an Igbo-Nigerian artist, art historian, art curator, and blogger specializing in African and African Diaspora art history. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya is a Nigerian printmaker, painter and sculptor. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and the Malmö Konsthall in Malmö, Sweden. The National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos has an exhibit of colourful abstract canvases by Onobrakpeya and his works can be found at the Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art, although no exhibitions were showing as of October 2017.
Victor Ekpuk is a Nigerian-born artist based in Washington, DC. Ekpuk came to prominence through his paintings and drawings, which reflect indigenous African philosophies of the Nsibidi and Uli art forms.
Sylvia H. Williams, née Sylvia Louise Hill, was a museum director, curator, art historian, and scholar of African art. She helped develop the study and appreciation of African art as a significant aesthetic and intellectual pursuit in the United States.
Bill Gaskins is an American photographer and academic. His work explores the intersection of black hair and critical analysis of the portraiture in the 21st century. In his book Good And Bad Hair: Photographs, Gaskins tackles the role of hairstyling and the representation in African American culture and he also examines the transcultural role of hair, adornment of ornaments and personal identity with the body.
Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi is a Nigerian artist, art historian, and curator, currently curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He was raised in Enugu and studied under sculptor El Anatsui at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, before traveling as an artist and curator. In the United States, he completed his doctorate at Emory University in 2013 and became the curator of African art at Dartmouth College's Hood Museum of Art. In 2017, he moved to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Nzewi has curated the Nigerian Afrika Heritage Biennial three times, the Dak'Art biennial in 2014, and independent exhibitions at Atlanta's High Museum of Art and New York's Richard Taittinger Gallery. Nzewi also exhibited internationally as an artist and artist-in-resident.
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