Sources and themes in the art of Obiora Udechukwu

African Arts, Summer, 2002 by Simon Ottenberg

Udechukwu, as we have noted, had been part of the cultural activity of the 1960s following independence. Now there was another time of artistic growth in Igboland, though for different reasons.

The emergence of uli on the contemporary art scene was a way of looking forward by looking back to earlier traditions. (7)

The revival of Igbo culture was really twofold, for it had been damaged not only by the war but also by the colonial period and its aftereffects. Udechukwu wrote (1980:43-44):

   In a country like Nigeria which experienced the cultural estrangement and
   emasculation that is part of colonialism it becomes imperative for the
   creative artist to launch an intellectual and revolutionary war against the
   vestiges of the colonial past. In order to regain his identity and with it
   self-confidence, he has to return to his roots, study and draw sustenance
   from it, for before being a modern man, he is an African, a Nigerian, an
   Igbo. The revitalizing effect of this recourse to roots has been recognized
   by important artists and intellectuals.

At Nsukka Udechukwu's art was subject to a number of other influences. Nigerian writers had emerged into prominence, their works becoming popular in schools and abroad--including the Igbo novelist-poet Chinua Achebe, the Yoruba dramatist-poet Wole Soyinka (who later received the Nobel Prize in literature), Cyprian Ekwensi, and Flora Nwapa. Udechukwu was particularly influenced by the Igbo poet Christopher Okigbo (Fig. 9), killed in 1967 in the Biafran War. Udechukwu had first discovered Ogikbo's first collection, Heavensgate, in his 1960s Enugu days (see also Okigbo 1971; Udechukwu 1975, 1984). Okigbo's poetry was complex and dense, containing references to traditional culture and also to classical European and Western literature. (8) In my 1994 interview, Udechukwu told me:

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

   Our training in secondary [school] was in the romantic poets of England and
   Europe, not the moderns, and Okigbo's poetry was completely modern. And
   even though I had no experience of modern poetry he spoke to me directly.
   The music, everything about it. And of course, the concern with the dilemma
   of the contemporary African intellectual, his relationships to his
   tradition ..."

Okigbo's writings also inspired Udechukwu to become the excellent poet that he is today, though his work differs from Okigbo's; it is less complex, with fewer references to European traditions, more likely to be directly concerned with social and political problems in Nigeria, a concern often expressed in a bitter satiric manner. Some of his visual art has Okigbo's poetic and lyrical qualities and complexity of interpretation, and at times there are close associations between his poetry and visual art. (9) Udechukwu's drawings and paintings mirror some of the allusions and ironies of Okigbo's poems. The artist also has a long-standing interest in traditional Igbo poet-singers, or minstrels, who accompany themselves on the ubo--the Igbo-style mbira, or thumb piano. These minstrels' long poetic tales or myths are depicted in a number of Udechukwu's works.