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practical efforts geared towards drawing attentions and articulation solutions to the disturbing state of our climate and environment resulting from man’s unwholesome activities against the biosphere. By examining the ways I work, processes, sculpture forms and choice of materials address issues of climate change and environmental degradation. Uses of trashed materials to call attention to the imbalances being exerted by man’s domestic and industrial activities on the earth’s ecosystem. Working with materials from my immediate environment and employing basic processes of tying, folding, stitching, gumming, and much more, show marked inventiveness and expressive force in the light of current debates and discourses on climate and environmental changes.
Artist Statement
Abstract
Climate changes adaptation have become critical global issues and concerns. Governments, corporate bodies and individuals, including artists around the world have recently stepped up the tempo of discourses and practical efforts geared towards drawing attentions and articulation solutions to the disturbing state of our climate and environment resulting from man’s unwholesome activities against the biosphere.
Interestingly, Olanrewaju Tejuoso is becoming recognized as a distinctive voice within the crop of young Nigerian artist whose works refer directly to issues of environmental degradation. He is an Abeokuta based artist who uses wastes such as discarded sachet water bags, empty cans and packets of beverages and fast food wrappers for his sculptures and installations.
This article draws attention on the work of this burgeoning artist by examining the ways by which his work processes, sculpture forms and choice of materials address issues of climate change and environmental degradation. This article also situates Olanrewaju’s installations in the light of the wider picture of contemporary Nigeria art and culture.
Abstract
Climate changes adaptation have become critical global issues and concerns. Governments, corporate bodies and individuals, including artists around the world have recently stepped up the tempo of discourses and practical efforts geared towards drawing attentions and articulation solutions to the disturbing state of our climate and environment resulting from man’s unwholesome activities against the biosphere.
Interestingly, Olanrewaju Tejuoso is becoming recognized as a distinctive voice within the crop of young Nigerian artist whose works refer directly to issues of environmental degradation. He is an Abeokuta based artist who uses wastes such as discarded sachet water bags, empty cans and packets of beverages and fast food wrappers for his sculptures and installations.
This article draws attention on the work of this burgeoning artist by examining the ways by which his work processes, sculpture forms and choice of materials address issues of climate change and environmental degradation. This article also situates Olanrewaju’s installations in the light of the wider picture of contemporary Nigeria art and culture.
Introduction
A one metre rise in water level displaces millions of people around the world, and thus creates serious social and economic problems. Desertification, drought, extreme hot weather and gradual extinction of some plant and animal species are also part of the consequences. Like a whirlwind, the threats of climate change and environmental degradation has tended to accumulate swirl and confront the human race with existential burdens from different angles.
On their part, writers, dramatists, visual artists and other creative people around the world have particularly used their media to call attention to the problem and to raise the awareness of the general public to climatic and environmental issues. In Nigeria , visual artist who are concerned with environmental and climatic issues have worked within the scope of their immediate physical and social environment. They have tended to focus on the impact of modern patterns of consumerist culture and poor refuse disposal in the country.
However, little or no attention has been paid to Olanrewaju Tejuoso who has for a couple of years consistently channeled his creative energy towards the transformation of societal detritus into sculptural essays that add significant voices to the discourse on climate change and environmental degradation. This article aims to spotlight the significant contribution of Olanrewaju to the ongoing debates and discussion on the problem.
On their part, writers, dramatists, visual artists and other creative people around the world have particularly used their media to call attention to the problem and to raise the awareness of the general public to climatic and environmental issues. In Nigeria , visual artist who are concerned with environmental and climatic issues have worked within the scope of their immediate physical and social environment. They have tended to focus on the impact of modern patterns of consumerist culture and poor refuse disposal in the country.
However, little or no attention has been paid to Olanrewaju Tejuoso who has for a couple of years consistently channeled his creative energy towards the transformation of societal detritus into sculptural essays that add significant voices to the discourse on climate change and environmental degradation. This article aims to spotlight the significant contribution of Olanrewaju to the ongoing debates and discussion on the problem.
Olanrewaju and the Environmental Climatic Change Discourse: Media, Technique and Concepts
Olanrewaju’s creative media derives principally from societal cast-offs, and tends to recall the practices of two noble British artists, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who turn garbage into complex and visually arresting sculptural installations ( Honigman, 2004).
However, while Noble and Webster manipulate and transform base materials in the form of self-portraits, Olanrewaju does not usually involve recognizable humanoid shapes in his configurations. Rather, he deftly manipulates and transforms household wastes into visual metaphors. Many of the works are characterized by the tying, wrapping and gluing processes employed in their making. They are mostly abstract. Regardless of differences in their formal presentations, the material components of the works, and the word processes involved are regular and are also open to similar interpretations.
In one of Olanrewaju’s work, he creatively configured wood, threads and discarded empty sachets of ‘pure water’, biscuit wraps, and empty bags of processed foods, polythene and foils in a manner that presents a spatial image of a forest. The first prong of interpretation that filters through from the works refers to the beauty of vegetation. In this direction, Olanrewaju brought together a wide assortment of colourful materials, carefully selected from rubbish bins, to bear semblances of natural order. The works are composed with sticks of variegated sizes and shapes which are adorned with predominantly brilliant colours for flowery effects. Confronting the works further, the viewer is inclined to move into another plane of thought. The works tend to launch the viewer into a social context that is pregnant with meanings. For example, the way each work in the series is wrapped or tied, individualized and unified, refer to a community of people standing for a common purpose. Exploiting more, the multifocal reflections projected into the works, the viewer is compelled to see a carnival of images or a spectacular beauty contest organized by the artist to give man a break from life of chaos and environmental degradation. Although, the works are generated from refuse, there is no visual allusion to wastes or rubbish. Perhaps, this is one characteristic feature common to all his installations made with garbage materials. Thus each shows the extent the environment can be cleaned up and transformed through recycling of wastes.
Olanrewaju goes about picking his materials with great enthusiasm. His enthusiasm appears to be largely because he believes his current creative exploration is a spiritual assignment. He has always insisted that he decided to drop painting, which he majored in during his art training, for exploration with trash following a God-given insight he received after converting to Christianity from his Moslem faith and being ‘born again’ in 2008. In other words, he believes he is a messenger of God sent to affect people with his art, for according to him;
“I love what I do, financially rewarding or not. I dropped painting for exploration with wastes because I want to affect people more and I feel this kind of art will help me do that better and change my environmental degradation. There is something inside me which makes me believe God is pushing me to do it as my own contribution toward the well being of the society. I thought of rest and love. I want to give rest to people.”
However, while Noble and Webster manipulate and transform base materials in the form of self-portraits, Olanrewaju does not usually involve recognizable humanoid shapes in his configurations. Rather, he deftly manipulates and transforms household wastes into visual metaphors. Many of the works are characterized by the tying, wrapping and gluing processes employed in their making. They are mostly abstract. Regardless of differences in their formal presentations, the material components of the works, and the word processes involved are regular and are also open to similar interpretations.
In one of Olanrewaju’s work, he creatively configured wood, threads and discarded empty sachets of ‘pure water’, biscuit wraps, and empty bags of processed foods, polythene and foils in a manner that presents a spatial image of a forest. The first prong of interpretation that filters through from the works refers to the beauty of vegetation. In this direction, Olanrewaju brought together a wide assortment of colourful materials, carefully selected from rubbish bins, to bear semblances of natural order. The works are composed with sticks of variegated sizes and shapes which are adorned with predominantly brilliant colours for flowery effects. Confronting the works further, the viewer is inclined to move into another plane of thought. The works tend to launch the viewer into a social context that is pregnant with meanings. For example, the way each work in the series is wrapped or tied, individualized and unified, refer to a community of people standing for a common purpose. Exploiting more, the multifocal reflections projected into the works, the viewer is compelled to see a carnival of images or a spectacular beauty contest organized by the artist to give man a break from life of chaos and environmental degradation. Although, the works are generated from refuse, there is no visual allusion to wastes or rubbish. Perhaps, this is one characteristic feature common to all his installations made with garbage materials. Thus each shows the extent the environment can be cleaned up and transformed through recycling of wastes.
Olanrewaju goes about picking his materials with great enthusiasm. His enthusiasm appears to be largely because he believes his current creative exploration is a spiritual assignment. He has always insisted that he decided to drop painting, which he majored in during his art training, for exploration with trash following a God-given insight he received after converting to Christianity from his Moslem faith and being ‘born again’ in 2008. In other words, he believes he is a messenger of God sent to affect people with his art, for according to him;
“I love what I do, financially rewarding or not. I dropped painting for exploration with wastes because I want to affect people more and I feel this kind of art will help me do that better and change my environmental degradation. There is something inside me which makes me believe God is pushing me to do it as my own contribution toward the well being of the society. I thought of rest and love. I want to give rest to people.”
Summary
Olanrewaju uses trashed materials to call attention to the imbalances being exerted by man’s domestic and industrial activities on the earth’s ecosystem. Although, he realizes the distinction between fantasy and reality, he is encouraged by his faculty of creativity which enables him raise useful discusses on the issue of climate change and environmental degradation from the perspective of a Nigerian living and working in the little town of Abeokuta but who is aware of the larger implication of the problem in other climes. Working with materials from his immediate environment and employing basic processes of tying, folding, stitching, gumming, and much more, his recent works show marked inventiveness and expressive force in the light of current debates and discourses on climate and environmental changes.
Olanrewaju Tejuoso Contact Information
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