Migratory Mythopoeism

all photos courtesy of the estate of Moyo OgundipeFor Moyo Ogundipe (1948–2017), as for many contemporary African artists, the global condition has been experienced through the prism of migration. Disillusioned by political turmoil in Nigeria, he fled the country shortly after Sani Abacha assumed power in the early 1990s and settled in the United States, returning only in 2008. At that time, he joined a small but ever-growing returnee community in the southwest of the country and, as a mature artist, invented himself anew. In this article, I argue that the experience of migration, and particularly the experience of displacement (or sense of isolation from both a homeland and a new land) that so often accompanies migration, became the catalyst for his creative practice. He worked within the dynamic tradition of mythopoeia—what he conceived as poetic mythmaking—and produced an imaginative new body of work designed both to make sense of what he often described as “this inexplicable world” and help chart his course forward in the multicultural global sphere.1In his self-described exile in the United States, Ogundipe was overcome by nostalgia for his Yorubaland, even while eager to take advantage of the professional opportunities that existed abroad and to carve out a space for himself in the international art arena. He accordingly grounded his work in Yoruba culture and re-presented archetypal characters from the extensive corpus of classical Yoruba mythology—in effect, transposing concepts contained within past myths into a contemporary global context for reference. On his return, Ogundipe took stock of the problems in the country, but, still eager to put down new roots, he attempted to reconcile his imagined homeland with his present-day experiences. In a series of returnee paintings, featuring a new cast of characters based loosely on the women he met in southwest Nigeria, he envisioned a possible, even if by no means certain, future in which past social codes continue to provide the bedrock of an increasingly diverse society.The primary intention of this article is to illustrate that, as a mythopoeic painter, Ogundipe produced a multidimensional mythography related to the global condition and his varied experiences with displacement during his exile and on his return. The study also acknowledges that he often deliberately transcended the geopolitical moment in which he worked to visualize the beauty in this infinite universe and to examine more fundamental mythic questions related to the nature of the cosmos and human existence. I begin with a discussion of Ogundipe's early career, addressing the implications of the sociopolitical landscape in postcolonial Nigeria for his early career and subsequent migration. I then trace the subtle changes in his approach to mythopoeic painting over his long career as his orientation on the global stage shifted.As a student at the University of Ife between 1968 and 1972, Ogundipe built on his cosmopolitan upbringing in colonial southwest Nigeria to develop a distinct postcolonial art practice. (For accounts of Ogundipe's early upbringing in southwest Nigeria, see Okediji 2002: 100–109; Sytsma 2008: 29; Filani 2017: 3). He originally planned to follow in the footsteps of Victor Daramola, his art teacher at the prestigious Christ's School in Ado-Ekiti, and to study fine arts at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in northern Nigeria (see Osundare 2008: 14 for an account of Ogundipe's early training at Christ's School). The country's unstable political conditions, however, compelled him to reconsider. By the time he was to enroll, a few decades' worth of ethnic tension had erupted in a bloody civil war, commonly referred to as the Biafran War, making travel around the country increasingly dangerous. He decided to remain in the southwest and, since that region did not have a university with a fine arts program, he elected to pursue a degree in art education at the University of Ife (what is now Obafemi Awolowo University) on the new campus in Ile-Ife.2The art education program at the University of Ife provided an ideal complement to his secondary school art education at Christ's School. While it was similarly based on British models, with course offerings in drawing, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, and art history, it was uniquely administered by research fellows in the Institute of African Studies and accordingly had a distinctly African slant. The research fellows were investigating various aspects of Yoruba history and culture and urged students to complete courses in African history, philosophy, and literature in addition to art education and to draw on African, particularly Yoruba, sources in their work. Students also found inspiration in the sacred city of Ile-Ife and were able to attend African theater, film, dance, and music productions at the Institute's Ori Olokun Cultural Center throughout the year (including during the annual Ife Festival of the Arts) and view the rich collection of ancient Yoruba art in the National Museum in Ile-Ife. (For a more complete discussion of the art education program at the University of Ife at this time, including an examination of both its advantages and disadvantages, see Sytsma 2016).As a student at the University of Ife, Ogundipe expanded on his early Western art training at Christ's School and, according to Rowland Abiodun, his mentor in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ife, he introduced “a modern African dimension to painting.”3 In 2015, Ogundipe reflected:I knew that I had grown up in an environment that was very rich in its lores, in its history, and in its visual arts. I had been part of the celebration of this rich heritage for years. It was all around me. I saw what contemporary artists were doing and I knew that I had to use Yoruba culture as a source.4He thus became part of what he has described as “a grand experiment,” which developed alongside postcolonial politics, beginning in the late 1950s. At this time, members of the Zaria Art Society employed the concept of “natural synthesis” (combining local and foreign artistic sources) in the spirit of nationalism. Continuing into the next decade artists then reevaluated the objectives of this theoretical model in light of escalating interethnic conflict in the country.5The discursive environment of the early postcolonial era provided the context for Ogundipe's artistic engagement. To be sure, Ogundipe had embraced nationalism as a child in the mid 1950s when Nigeria was preparing for independence from Great Britain. As the son of one of twelve inaugural senators for the Western Region, he believed that with independence Nigeria would unite across ethnic lines, and he was optimistic about the country's future. Nonetheless, his worldview had changed by the time he entered the University of Ife, and the outbreak of the civil war brought into sharp relief the continued ethnic tension in the country.6 At that time, Ogundipe rejected the nationalist paradigm of early postcolonial modern art espoused by the Zaria Art Society, choosing instead to employ the concept of hybridity as the basis of a highly personal artistic exploration shaped by his diverse encounters in cosmopolitan southwest Nigeria.Ogundipe's art practice of this period expanded on earlier examples of postcolonial Nigerian modernism. He was influenced by the now internationally known Osogbo artists Jimoh Buraimoh, Adebisi Fabunmi, and Muraina Oyelami (who were associated with the Institute of African Studies in the late 1960s and early 1970s and who assisted Solomon Irein Wangboje in his weekly workshops at the Ori Olokun Cultural Center). He similarly grounded his work on existing forms of Yoruba cultural production while pursuing the rigorous experimentation of Western modernism, and in paintings such as Drummers and Dancers (1972) (Fig. 1), he adapted an enduring Yoruba convention which Henry Drewal and Margaret Thompson Drewal (1987) term “seriation,” and methodically filled the space surrounding the group of performers section-by-section with a series of angular brown, black, and ocher planes.7 Even so, Ogundipe worked within a distinct academic tradition more in keeping with that adopted by members of the Zaria Art Society, and his paintings increasingly expressed an arguably more deliberate engagement with Yoruba art and philosophy along with a deeper understanding of their correlations with broader contemporary global art discourse.When Ogundipe graduated from the University of Ife in 1972, he believed that, with the harsh ecopolitical climate of the period, a career in the arts in Nigeria was not a viable option. After a successful joint exhibition with recent ABU graduate Kolade Oshinowo that year, he pursued alternative paths, first as a television producer and later as a filmmaker, always with the intention of returning to his painting once the situation improved. Regrettably, under the military regimes of Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and Sani Abacha, conditions turned from bad to worse. The Structural Adjustment Program reforms introduced in the mid 1980s failed to revive a stagnant economy and made daily life in Nigeria a constant struggle. The military rulers used coercion to maintain power, imprisoning those who posed potential threats to their authority and severely restricting press freedoms. Businesses closed, unemployment grew widespread, and crime rates across the country, particularly in cities, drastically increased.8It was therefore only in the United States, two decades later, that Ogundipe fully committed himself to his art by the of at and eager to experience what has described as the of and in his with the in the Ogundipe joined the of in in the United for first were in he was the for the of of Cultural the of fine arts program at the School of at the Institute of Art in he a at the Art during which time he a with of African and arts and Moyo later, Ogundipe that this was a The two daily in the on art and life and to the music of and Ogundipe often with the experience of He would that the condition of displacement to broader questions related to the nature of and the and he to Yoruba and related for the to the course of long to as an and as a human it became for to to and the ancient culture of for artistic and In from his first in the United States, he grounded his practice on Yoruba as he continued to his and with new forms of artistic In one of his such paintings, of (Fig. for he methodically filled the by with as he had in earlier from Nigeria, to visualize the universe at the of and to the of in to Yoruba the universe two distinct the of and the of At the of two that in human On one the the and that human and to the of the On the the of that social and about in the As is no between the two always in In the Yoruba on the mythic stage thus be with To overcome in life and maintain in to the to in the of the and and of a universe is commonly as a along the and 2008: 2008: In examples such as the from the Museum (Fig. the of and as and and the that the two in the As Drewal and Drewal the commonly found in the visual arts a universe made up of but visual to the Yoruba and bad in the world” The to the space The across the so that is more and is from in the the of in the visual arts the constant between In the of with forms of cultural this is found in the of and and and In the of the paintings throughout southwest Nigeria, it is in the of from Moyo Okediji that is of which the of Yoruba similarly that, in the paintings, the constant of the Yoruba of and early exile Ogundipe the found on the along with various Yoruba in on the of He with a series of that in across the of the and at various to an a he then methodically with to the next in The paintings the experiences of the to space for and to out in across the to an that is to Yoruba but also from the late and early which Ogundipe his in at the of global also of for this work. In a I of with Yoruba and, as in Yoruba cultural a universe by the work also the the which that in its the universe of of that, the between Ogundipe's early paintings and Yoruba cultural the two have distinct Drewal and Drewal that in Yoruba is a means of diverse not only to their but, more to into to and to into Rowland that, when the of is through the work in is and is able to to and the of in the contemporary global artistic Ogundipe has no intention of the He instead this contemporary paradigm for The from the of of the and making of their environment and of the of the In the the in the cosmos in even if only to and The across the such that no and the and according to the Yoruba for the late 1990s and early Ogundipe expanded on this early series with a body of In examples such as (Fig. The (Fig. of (Fig. (Fig. and of (Fig. he continued to his practice on Yoruba artistic and, as part of a nostalgia he re-presented archetypal characters from Yoruba on characters from ancient and that he had as a child in his on with and The paintings what an and what Ogundipe himself described as the of no of the civil and that existed in Nigeria and during this a and that so, it would be a to Ogundipe's paintings from exile as of the past as this body of Ogundipe with contemporary who of mythic as a that ancient myths were designed to a sense of in and a deeper understanding of the To that myths continue to an and to the of the a practice of mythic the of past myths to what a new and, a myths into modern thus that, while the practice of the of past it not be The he is and a of In mythic the of the is into the it is as a new paradigm for is for such as this in the Yoruba tradition from which Ogundipe of his in Yoruba culture as in past myths adopted as of for the Margaret Thompson Drewal for that in in past myths re-presented the of its designed to for according to one a for the The is a in which varied myths to in Yoruba the ancient and concepts that in in provide for paintings from the late 1990s and early Ogundipe worked within this and dynamic tradition of for an increasingly painting is a that in from Yoruba mythography and related Yoruba the characters in Ogundipe's contemporary paintings not by a even when within the that Ogundipe by the between as on the mythic between the of and the of The mythic in which has the to as Filani visual that more to this since the grounded on enduring Yoruba artistic the cultural that in myths as the characters for his paintings from In in which was in Yoruba he the characters in on In he a of one of of (Fig. which him of those he first at the of the of while his on the from to in the 1950s and which he during his at the Art in he a in in in the tradition of the by and in the mid to late (Fig. In in which was no in Yoruba cultural Ogundipe his characters from In for he a from alongside a that he both as the spirit and by the Western of Ogundipe to enduring Yoruba artistic making that his early training in academic British the of the and his distinct artistic he the characters at what Thompson as the and and in the of In such as in the in he also employed a on the the of human in Yoruba and not he adopted this of he and women with along a to in with the characters Yoruba past and for as and as it to the in the to on the stage of with a and thus to the in the and that the characters and mythic Yoruba have long what in the to have in their rich Ogundipe from existing Yoruba cultural in as reference. the in the of the past to the course of to for the with that of it to and forward The found in such as provide a for since a its The in of the of and the of for the beauty that alongside the a the as for into the nature of human and the global to Moyo Ogundipe the into an in the creative able to the of the and to that which is to the of for according to the Yoruba is more on this in Ogundipe self-described of paintings were from his to both his Yoruba culture while abroad and continue the of life in the United and on the global In the the in Yoruba and related and the of the conflict in the is made always conceived of his exile as many of those who fled Nigeria during the early to mid he planned to once the civil had While the had during his first decade the to by the early making a more and more the the sociopolitical climate in Nigeria and Ogundipe was increasingly by his career in the United He was an of international work had been in such as Art in and of African in Yoruba Art The Art and of and Art for in and Nonetheless, Okediji that work was with by the in at the University of at he for and as the he became by his encounters with Ogundipe to Nigeria, he became part of a small but ever-growing returnee He a in a in the city of and, after a successful exhibition at prestigious he an in the of at University in the of his first year, he in and made the to to his In he then into a a from campus and a space in a I argue that the work he produced during his first after returning of a returnee He was that Nigeria had changed in his In his it of the homeland he had envisioned as a child and continued to while in the United States, and he the of cultural and what he described as the in the he was to be in Nigeria, which he often expressed still the of from his early return, such as and (Fig. and (Fig. from his to reconcile his to in the daily of Yoruba culture in the southwest of the country and his with the and In he introduced a new of the and with contemporary women based loosely on those he met in southwest Nigeria, and as in the United States, he in a practice of mythic and his surrounding landscape in Nigeria enduring mythopoeic returnee his exile imaginative new mythic only in this more to contemporary experiences and the tension between what is and what be to a if early returnee small of women from diverse social made up of Ogundipe employed the of as in the United and expanded on a series that he during his few in exile with (Fig. similarly and in and from a year later, of two more Ogundipe as women on their to an After the at he his a more and he expanded his to the women with he in in the with on their also in the new cast of and remain grounded in a mythopoeic On his to Nigeria, Ogundipe employed many of the artistic he had put into practice in He worked his to the and he the contemporary characters at a with to and even if by women in southwest Nigeria, and able to in for of The characters in a and the and of earlier and along with the codes within The paintings the of mythic to multidimensional to that one of the primary of and related to provide the multidimensional of the paintings, various Ogundipe's early returnee the corpus of to the Yoruba in which with the life of that to the in the cosmos and their course of to more recent that the of and in Ogundipe's similarly new in which the potential of of is He to both the and the women with the of Thompson as as with the power of In Ogundipe to for making only to for in two women one to the on their In his paintings, all members of of social in Ogundipe's their as to the of in the and to in this early returnee paintings In a from Ogundipe both from the of power by in paintings such as and from the the of women who in the for in paintings such as At the time, he not the that in the country as an Ogundipe a of the and he the sociopolitical landscape in the of the for he that, while that the women he to that is “a of in their the his contemporary paintings, in the designed to social The paintings the that from his of in southwest Nigeria, by the of Yoruba and his continued for the homeland that he first envisioned as a child in the early postcolonial era and continued to in the United He a for contemporary in which in the adapted to the the Ogundipe continued to with the condition of to reconcile his for the country with the around he from contemporary In his he turned and to the of his He the series of women he put one of his was and his to the concepts that had his since his in the United States, if not He his the he had and to their and he worked with a of and later returnee paintings, such as of (Fig. no of the sociopolitical landscape in Nigeria at the encounters in life and with instead in the of paintings earlier work from his such as of with a few later paintings were more and about the in his Ogundipe I was in understanding and of I a more a more to take In the between and he of the over his earlier in his career and the recent paintings to of their As he with a of lines, but in he elected not to to the he of to the and of and a mature with a of experience on the global stage from which to he earlier to from the in the universe and embraced the as a in life and a of the beauty in the Ogundipe adopted as an the as and that while when under a to a that with when the was he Yoruba and in his to the between the in the cosmos and the related and in to paintings the of the and human a and infinite universe in which is and The conflict in the global is in the but, as in it is still to beauty that within the of (Fig. one of the Ogundipe while preparing for his exhibition by Moyo Ogundipe at the in in an for his mythopoeic painting practice. In with and a child on a and The two the of the of the power of women in Yoruba the with the of (see on the between and the power of women in Yoruba The at the in the over the of the and the the two in this Ogundipe between the of production and mythopoeic a African who from from in to he Yoruba mythopoeic as the basis for a new body of In early examples from the United States, he archetypal mythic characters from diverse and in later examples from Nigeria, he the Yoruba and with a new of contemporary with the such that able to in for of In that from his the various concepts in past in the and, a provide of reference. of and from his long career no of the political that in the In the mythic he to space to new

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