ARTS FROM THE MOTHERLAND
Dozie Arts is proud to present 'Arts from the Motherland', an exhibition introducing new work from eleven exciting emerging artists drawn from Africa and the African Diaspora. The richness of traditional African cultures, the painful passage into and through colonialism and the deep shadows and conflicts which continue, visions and depictions of Black skin, the strength of an African woman as she dances or sits in stillness... each of these young painters grapples with the reality of the contemporary moment and presents a creative vision which is both disarmingly beautiful and politically confrontational.
In Ademola Ojo's painting 'Black Identity', a man in a suit leans on the back of a chair in a blank room, a thick watch on his wrist and a glass of whisky at his other elbow. In Astu Numadzi's 'Return', a girl in a letterman jacket which seems too big and heavy gazes inscrutably into the viewer's eyes against a hazy red backdrop of broken corrugated roofs and a burned sky. In 'In Private Space' by Ibrahim Ibamedele a woman sits taut, half naked and defensive on a bed, her face cast down, but around her is a living garden of dense and delicate Ankara patterns. In Ojo's vision the sitter's skin is blue, seeming metallic and deeply scarified; the eye filled black as if looking out from within a mask. Is this an image of strength or of uncertainty? Of assertion or of loss? The coloniser or the colonised or just an empty shell? Numadzi's young woman seems out of place in her surroundings but, in contrast, her gaze is strong and clear. It seems she is not lost at all.  Are the Ankara patterns Ibamedele traces swallowing up the unhappy figure on the bed, or are they the fruits of her own  protective imagination? The power of these works is in their deliberate ambiguity and complexity. In their interrogation of Blackness and of a web of historical and contemporary narratives, some known, some mysterious, each artist challenges us to deeper contemplation. There is no room for imposed easy answers here.
More symbols and stories abound amongst the other works. Aragbada Oralinka Steven captures fleeting moments in life, showing us Black women apparently lost in inward thought amongst highly polished furniture, holding coffee cups and old fashioned handbags. Eyitayo Alagbe's portraits are highly finished but there is something unsettling in their slick hyper-reality and the sharpness of their shadows. Katasha Gold's ballet dancers move against bright skies inspired by a Jamaican childhood, powerful and unsmiling. Oroluntubi Aina's women seem pulled from the pages of glossy global fashion magazines until you see their skin is cracked or veined. Are we looking through the skin to something visceral beneath? Is what is there alive or dying? Damola Eniyan paints faces as dazzling, living mosaics of light and colour, pleading for 'Strength in Diversity' against the historical fractures of colonialism and ongoing religious and ethnic tension within the continent and the Diaspora.
 From studios in Lagos, London, Ife and more, 'Arts from the Motherland' offers a rich, distinct, challenging and urgent African perspective on themes that spread to all humans in a globalised world. The exhibition will run from the 8th to the 10th of October at Thames Arts Center, Brooklyn NY. Opening reception October 8th, 6-9pm.