Artist of the Week – John Madu

POSTED IN Art, Art history, Culture, Drawn art, Painting
By Tobijulo Onifade
Circa summer 2015, a good friend invited me to Morphogenesis an art exhibition by John Madu. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it. Fast forward to December of the same year, the same friend and I attended the Art 21 exhibition at Eko hotel and while the body of works exhibited impressed me but I was drawn to a black and yellow triptych which turned out to be John Madu’s work. His use of colours as well as the juxtaposition of imagery was enthralling and I sort of struggled for days to find the best word to describe his work. At work the following week, I come across a picture of an artist I admire from a particular movement and it dawned on me that the name of the moment is the best word to describe John’s work, the word is:

SURREAL

Surrealism (according to the Apple dictionary) is a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

 

 

Surrealism is inspired by dreams and the subconscious, it disregards logic and this is how John’s art made me feel when I attended a solo exhibition of his in February 2016. There is an element of freedom and liberty portrayed in his works, which I really appreciate as growing up academic art, was the norm. His use of colours, collage and other distorted elements sort of gives a rebellious outlook but that’s overlooked as the subject matter of his works still does what its meant to do which is to drive a message home.

 

 

 

An article by Jackie Craven on www.thoughtco.com presented a few fun facts/characteristics of Surrealistic Art, which I also believe is synonymous with John’s work. These are Dream-like scenes and symbolic images, Unexpected, illogical juxtapositions, Visual puns, Distorted figures and biomorphic shapes and so on. Academic art is still the expected but I believe individualism in art is a concept that is here to stay and thrive and I believe John’s art which belongs to the latter, will thrive.
To know more about John Madu’s work, visit his Art635 page.
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