Ara Deinde

Feeling Out For Something IV, acrylic, oil pastels, ballpoint pens and charcoal on leather, 36 inches by 24 inches, 2020 In conversation with an artist friend, I had this to say:  "I think as artists we go back and forth between appreciating and visually representing the ideal and the real, and it's good like that. It gives us a wholesome view of the world. These little things we experience everyday matter. They collectively represent reality and are worth documenting. Then there are the things we experience only in our heads. Abstract thoughts and feelings. These collectively represent the ideal." The average young person is in a place of looking for ways to get heard, get visible. It's instinctive, this pressing desire to be related with, to be understood. What do we get however? A convoluted twist of feelings and biases that becloud the identity we're trying to project. We have a lot of things to communicate but it is left to the people who really care to conn

Nwantinti by Njideka Akunyili Crosby Njideka Akunyili Crosby is emblematic of the postcolonial diasporean experience as illustrated via the most advanced form of man's civilization: art. She leads a crop of young, talented and socioculturally aware Africans in the art sphere such as Wangechi Mutu, Kehinde Wiley, Toyin Odutola Ojih etc in the expression of the new, negotiated realities of the African. These new realities are within the context of the morphing face of globalisation and the emergent role of the African narrative in it.  This is apparent in her analysis of herself as being torn continually between her native sociocultural experiences and those she experiences in the country she resides in - the United States of America. She is married to a Caucasian American and this raises a world of questions which she probably never knew were there. In Africa, we see tribes and specific cultural affiliations; in the diaspora, we are forced to see colour for what it unfortunately is

A thing or two (not) to say , oil pastels and acrylic on canvas, 2020 There is an overt exploitation of curiosity and desperation in the African art market. The curiosity is on the part of the Western world who incidentally have the wherewithal to explore the whims of their curiousness (which isn't peculiar to them anyways; man in general is a being driven by a longing to know and to do. It's why we have made all the human progress we have). The desperation is largely the bane of African artists and art markets, keen to capitalize on the influx of interest from the Western world. I am misconstrued , charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 2020 It is no news that these artefacts have since found their way into pro-western museums, but what is interesting to take note of is the attendant disinterest of the average young African artist of the 21st century in the art of his fathers asides the capitalist interest, as opposed to western interest which is both capitalist and appreciative. It

"Accents of Silence" by Àrà Dẹ̀ìndé, 36" by 24", mixed media on canvas, 2019 Ben Enwonwu made an interesting comment in 1989: "I will not accept an inferior position in the art world, nor have my art called African because I have not correctly and properly given expression to my reality. I have consistently fought against that kind of Philosophy because it is bogus. European artists like Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck were influenced by African art. Everybody sees that and is not opposed to it, but when they see African artists who are influenced by their European training and technique, they expect that African to stick to their traditional forms, even if he bends down to copying them. I do not copy traditional art; I like what I see in the works of people like Giacometti but I do not copy them. I knew Giacometti personally in England you know; I knew he was influenced by African sculptures but I will not be influenced by Giacometti because he was influenced by