Master of uli art, Uche Okeke recedes to ancestors
An era ended in Nigerian visual arts community last Monday morning following the newsbreak of the death of frontline contemporary Nigerian artist, and very socio-cultural member of Zaria Art Society, Professor Uche Okeke .
His death in his hometown Nimo Anambra State, came as a curtain-call to his over four decade work as painter, lecturer and mentor to young artists in Nigeria and several parts of the world. Okeke, along with Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwoko and Yusuf Grillo, led the struggle that metamorphosed into Zaria Art Society in Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University) Zaria, passed on Monday after a protracted struggle against stroke.
He dedicated his faculties to giving voice to Nigerian visual arts culminating in his several art exhibitions in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
Okeke’s early work ranged from pen and ink portraits, to figures rendered in pen and ink and based upon Igbo tales, to a series of images rendered in gouache that were published in Tales of Land of Death(1971). He created images of Igbo spirits, mythic figures, and masqueraders in various media. A scene from Chinua Achebe’s famous novel Things Fall Apart was illustrated by Okeke in oil paint, as was a scene of Igbo women demonstrating during the 1929 Aba Riots in southeastern Nigeria.
The man who through the peak period of his career, 1960s through late 1990s produced great art works appears to have left the world in fulfillment, notwithstanding his long battle with debilitating stroke.
He died on early hours of Monday, January 4, at his home tome Nimo Anambra State.
Mourning his passage, members of the Nigerian arts community recall the rare contributions he made as an pinter and mentor to younger artists. Some also cite his contribution in the Zaria art movement struggle among other legacies he left behind.
Born in 1933, in Nimo, Okeke with the aid of Prof. Chike Aniakor and others developed the art program at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, from 1970, at the end of the Biafran War until 1985.
Okeke’s curiosity about his own culture was whetted by Igbo tales told by his mother and sister, by his secondary school education in the Igbo land, and later by the discovery that his mother had been an uli artist.
Attending the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University) at Zaria from 1958 to 1961, Okeke and other art students fought against formal British artistic training and the work of earlier contemporary artists in Nigeria, arguing instead for the ‘natural synthesis’ of indigenous elements with topical issues. He founded the Asele Institute, a cultural center now located at his residence in Nimo, which houses an art library and a collection of contemporary Nigerian art.
Drawing strongly on the rich linear qualities of uli, Okeke thoughtfully uses Igbo cultural materials in a positive, forward-looking manner rather than a nostalgic way. He sees the state of development of contemporary art in Nigeria as related to the country’s condition in general, and he has done much to call attention to the importance of art to the life of the nation.
