By Tobi Onifade

Art 365’s Collaborative workshop “The Hard Part of Art”, was held on Saturday the 25th of November 2017 at the Herbert Macaulay Library and it was quite the event. It featured an interesting array of artists who gave more than a little insight into their world, their inspirations and helpful advice for people like me looking to get into the Lagos art scene. Chamberlin Ukenedo, Ayobola Kekere-Ekun, Osa 7 and Akinlabi Akinbulumo were the delightful speakers of the day and there was a lot to learn from each of them.

The session kicked off with Chamberlin Ukenedo, a talented Illustrator, painter and art director who talked about how to make a difference with art and why people created art. However, the most insightful part of his presentation was his advice on exhibiting art. According to him, it is important to: do your research, look for a niche and see how it can be conveyed aesthetically, have a compelling message/prominent theme, seize the moment, collaborate (it’s cost effective). With regards to planning the exhibition, his advice was to: have a proposal, pick a date, secure a venue, set a price that’s fair to both you and the buyer, have smaller prints of works/sketches that can be sold at a lower price.

Chamberlin Ukenedo

The next speaker and only female of the group was Ayobola Kekere-Ekun and as the only female speaker, she came through and “bossed” it. Her session centred around Art and Technology with emphasis on the rise of digital art and it’s alienation within the art community. She started off by asking the audience what art was and told us to hold the first thought that came to mind. I am sure we all had different ideas, but she went on to state that the notion of what art is has been contested for centuries and it wasn’t going to end soon.

Ayobola Kekere-Ekun

Her advice to artists (especially digital artists) was to not bother about what other people thought because we are unique individuals with different styles and new directions always face resistance. In her words “It’s good because you are challenging the norm’. With statistics from the NCC (Nigerian Communication Commission), she gave insight on how digital art feeds into visual culture. The talk ended with a question and answer session, there was an interesting question about the best way to deal with critics as well as how to go about selling your work after all ‘man must chop”. To which she responded as follows: Break the norm and stage whatever exhibition you like, infiltrate the traditional ways of what happens here, vision is important to work (it will take you far). Ayobola’s session was necessary, as the validation that “one is enough” was passed through her message and it was truly therapeutic.

In the concluding part of my review of Art365’s Collaborative workshop “The Hard Part of Art” that held on Saturday the 25th of November 2017 at the Herbert Macaulay Library.  I will be telling you what I learnt from the other two talented artists on the panel – Osa 7 and Akinlabi Akinbulumo.

Osa7 as he is popularly known as is a graffiti artist, whose main mission is to create art that is relevant to the society. He is also involved in the Art for a Cause initiative. He talked about his transition from working for agencies and brands to becoming a graffiti artist. Which is something a lot of people can relate to because sometimes there is this inner struggle to conform so one can get by, as opposed to following one’s passion. His belief in the fact that art is more than a practice and a skill because it inspires people and the society, led him to become an accomplished artist, individual and brand.

Osa Seven

Brand strategist and Member of the Board of Directors at the Trellis group, Mr Akinlabi Akinbulomo gave the final talk at the workshop. He shaped our thinking with regards to seeing art as a viable product as well as believing in the works of our hands. He drove his point further by using past experiences and day-to-day activities, some of which I’ll gladly share with you: make a science of your art, the business of art is the same as the business of anything, great products don’t sell themselves (a contradiction to this statement), people will exchange money for value. He had an interactive session in which he received an overwhelming amount of questions from the audience.

Akinlabi Akinbulumo

After the wonderful speakers had done their thing, the audience got to do theirs. There was a group activity session, which was divided into two parts, Grafitti and T-shirt painting. The theme of the day was wrapped around, purpose, value and challenging oneself and so I decided to go with T-shirt painting (as a creative, I have done a lot of things except for that so it made sense). There was a lot of laughter, compliments and fun, I felt like part of a tribe. In the end, we all had lunch, took pictures with our work and exchanged contact information. It was truly an informative experience, one that I’d advise anyone not to miss out on next time.

Here is the shirt I designed during the workshop.