Press Release
Skoto Gallery is pleased to present Ile Ori/Ori Ile (House of the Head/Head of the House), an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Osi Audu. Born i
igeria, the artist was educated in that country and the United States. For over a decade now, he has maintained a strong professional presence in Korea, Japan, Great Britain, United States, Italy, Germany, Austria and Africa through highly acclaimed exhibitions of his paintings. His work is in several private and public collections including The British Museum; The Horniman Museum, London; Schmidt Bank, Bayreuth, Germany; The Wellcome Trust, London, The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC and Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.
This is his second solo exhibition at the gallery. The reception is on Thursday, October 20th, 6-8pm.The artist will be present.
OR? ÒDE/OR? INÚ: Metaphysics of the Head in Osi Audu’s Art:
The images in the exhibition convey much more than meet the eye. For, notwithstanding their modernistic aspects, they have been inspired by the Yoruba notion of the self as an interface of spirit and matter, the one empowering the other in the natural world. The head (orí) dominates a typical Yoruba representation of that self for two main reasons. The first has to do with its biological significance as the seat of the brain, which coordinates the activities of the body, and the second, with the belief that the physical head—a site of identity, perception and communication—is no more than the outer shell (orí òde) of an inner/invisible head (orí inú), which localizes àse, the enabling power that sustains the cosmos and determines the personality as well as destiny of an individual. Little wonder that, in the past, many Yoruba dedicated an altar to the inner head (orí inú) for the purpose of harnessing its àse to cope with the existential struggle. This cone-shaped altar (ìborí) was kept inside a container called ilé ori (house of the head). Thus, to the Yoruba, succeeding in life depends, for the most part, on how well you are able to make good use of your head through a variety of processes involving the objective and subjective; the cultural, social, economic, political and spiritual; the technical and artistic, among others.
By employing highly conceptual imagery, Osi Audu hints at the empirical and metempirical dimensions of reality, in addition to stressing the role of the head (the location of the eyes) in its perception and interpretation. His Outer/Inner Head [Orí Òde/Orí Inú], #2, 2011 is a good example. Here, the artist combines minimalist geometric and organic forms with achromatic and contrasting colors to further underscore the interplay of the conscious, subconscious and superconsious in experiential responses, thereby obliging the viewer to look beyond the surface for deeper meanings. As a result, House of the Head [Ilé Orí], 1998, ushers the viewer into a dreamscape of sound and silence, remembering and forgetting, the exoteric and esoteric, the time-bound and timeless—all implicated in the human attempts to make better sense of the heard and unheard, the seen and unseen as well as the actual and virtual. Note the white cone in the middle. It recalls the shape of many Yoruba altars to the inner head (ìborí) and the configuration of an adé, the beaded crown of a Yoruba king (oba), thus stressing the apical location of the head on the human body. In effect, the head is to the self, what a king is to a kingdom and God (Olórun) to the universe–a source of power. This phenomenon also resonates in Osi Audu’s Ilé Orí/Orí Ile [House of the Head/Head of the House], 2011, which invokes the prominent gable roof (kòbì) that often distinguishes the entrance of a Yoruba palace (àfin), identifying the king as the head of the body politic with special powers to provide good leadership.
So it is that the art of Osi Audu conceals and reveals layers of meanings. Apart from exploring ancient and contemporary concepts and aesthetics, it relates brain and mind, body and soul, and the past to the present, offering food for thought and a mirror for self-reflection.
Babatunde Lawal, 2011
Art Historian
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
– Outer and Inner head
– ILE ORI/ORI ILE (Head of the House/House of the Head)
– House of the Head
– Starry Night
Concept and context
The Human head holds a very powerful fascination for me. My view of the head as a container – a container of consciousness, is an ongoing source of inspiration for my work. I see a correlation between traditional African thoughts, and contemporary scientific discourse on the nature of consciousness; and for over a decade, have explored some of the visual implications of these concepts in my work. n
The Opon Ifa model of the nature of the universe, which, for the Yoruba people of wester
igeria, is a map of the polarities within consciousness, locates the inner head (ori inu) as the central spiritual consciousness of self, and the outer head (ori ode) as the physicality of the head. The Yoruba word for the head itself is ori, which means – that which sees. This notion is echoed by the scientific fact that 75% of the brain is devoted to processing perception alone. Perception is therefore a particular area of interest in my work. n
Science tells us that perception takes place inside the head, as an interpretation of neural impulses in the brain. This interiority of perception challenges the boundary between inside/outside. I am intrigued by this aspect of the phenomenology of perception, and the complexities of how we see, especially the way human eyes ‘conjure’ up after-images of what would have just been stared at; but in the complementary colors of the original objects. This rather curious after-image effect raises, if not an outright contestation, a speculation about representation and reality itself. n
It is this objective/subjective (ode/inu) aspect of consciousness that I explore in my diptychs. (Outer and Inner Head No. 2, Diptych, 2011)
INTERACTIVE VISUAL ELEMENT
If the viewer stares fixedly for about 10 seconds at a point near the center of the left panel, and then transfers gaze to a similar point on the right panel, the viewer will ‘see’ the complementary color of the image just stared at. This experience of a light tint of the complementary color will remain visible for a few seconds.
This fleeting visual experience of the after-image is my way of referring to the intangible yet real phenomenon which consciousness is, (i.e. the inner head).
nHead: The Night is Bright with Stars/ Lae-lae
The Yoruba believe that consciousness originated from a mystical place called Lae-lae, which means eternity in English. The visual equivalent for eternity is infinity.
nMy work explores the image of the head as a container of consciousness.n This piece considers the visual implication and absurdity of infinite space being contained within the head. It is also a reference to the thousands of neural sparks in the brain that denote conscious experience as can be seen during an MRI scan.
nThe triangular line drawn to the left, in graphite, refers to the nose; and it rests on a shape that represents the mouth.
Ori Ile/Ile Ori (House of the Head/Head of the House) No 1, 2011
The word ori in Yoruba, apart from denoting consciousness, also refers to a king’s crown. Ile Ori (House of the Head) is an ornate container with a conical lid into which the crown is ‘housed’ at night. The series – Ori Ile/Ile Ori (House of the Head/Head of the House) is inspired by this artifact. The left panel refers to the head as the ornate container, and the right panel with the complementary colors (please see the section on Interactive Visual Element) is a reference to consciousness as contained in the head.
House of the Head
During my research on Olokun Mud Art for a long essay which was part of the requirements for my first degree program, I visited an Olokun shrine in Benin City. I was very much intrigued with the considered arrangement of objects, mounds of white chalk and other artifacts on the floor of the shrine. I was even more intrigued when the priestess Aghakhoawo I was interviewing explained that there were various patterns of arrangement of objects and mounds of chalk, each arrangement denoting the presence of a specific deity. The series – House of the Head is inspired by this experience, and the idea that consciousness can be referred to as a house, or more specifically as an installation – an arrangement of objects in a room.
Aesthetically, I like exploring the contrasts between smooth and textured surfaces, between the light absorbing matte blackness of black pastel and the light reflective sheen of a graphite surface. When wool is added, which is often, it refers to the texture of hair on the skin, either as beard, when it is at the lower hemisphere of the painting, or as hair on the head when it is at the upper hemisphere. The geometric format of the head is inspired by hemispherical formations in some traditional African sculpture pieces such as the Teke Tsaayi masks.
Osi Audu
New York
2011
