Eva Obodo: Recent Works: The New Nsukka School series

Eva Obodo creates mixed media artworks using jute and charcoal, which are formed by processes of wrapping, tying and bundling. Obodo’s compositions are used as metaphors to critique socio-political and economic structures that frame contemporary culture. This exhibition reflects a new direction in Obodo’s practice with his exploration of cloth, moving more into three-dimensional space.

Obodo uses an abstract formal language to contemplate issues of political corruption, economic inequality and environmental destruction. In his free-standing charcoal sculpture, House of Palliatives, Obodo refers to the viral social media videos during the looting of Covid-19 warehouses across many states in Nigeria in 2020. In Emissions, he wraps intricately wound jute threads to address the ecological impact of man’s activities in the natural environment. In other works such as Serious Business and Contract Award, he references the ubiquity of financial misconduct.

Eva Obodo currently serves as Senior Lecturer in sculpture at University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he received his MFA and PhD. He was formerly a lecturer at Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo. Obodo has held two solo exhibitions with Arthouse-The Space in Lagos, including Ngwugwu (Packages) in 2019 and Line.by.Line in 2015. He has participated in several international exhibitions including the Osaka Trienniale (Japan) and DAK’ART (Senegal). In 2013, he was the recipient of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Award.

Eva Obodo’s artistic career has been influenced by his relationship with Prof. El Anatsui, his teacher and mentor and a guiding figure of the Nsukka group. In addition to his studies, Eva Obodo worked as a studio assistant in El Anatsui’s studio for many years.

ABOUT THE NEW NSUKKA SCHOOL SERIES

The Nsukka School is term used to distinguish artists who have studied and/or taught at the Fine and Applied Arts Department at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in Southeastern Nigeria, and who share a critical engagement in both their visual and theoretical fields. An important center for art education in Nigeria, the experimental trajectory of the post-Civil War art department at Nsukka was spearheaded by Uche Okeke and Chike Aniakor in the early 1970s, and has subsequently been led by prominent artists including Obiora Udechukwu and El Anatsui. The Nsukka School is best known for the revival of Uli, an Igbo art tradition that was historically used for body art and wall murals, placing this visual language into contemporary art discourses.

As a descriptive label, the Nsukka School references a stylistic heritage whose aesthetic codes draw from a creative ideology that is conceptually idealized, experimentally driven and intellectually grounded. Nsukka artists leverage this ideology in creating contemporary art through the exploration of ideas, materials and forms sourced from the environment. The exhibition series includes a three-volume catalogue, with texts and critical analysis by Dr. George Odoh, Senior Lecturer in painting and drawing at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.