Nigeria’s veteran and self-effacing artist Jude Olotu has said he withheld exhibiting his works as a tool to communicate his sadness at the state of the country.
Olotu, despite his years of experience and numerous works, was yet to hold a solo exhibition but said he was ready to let the public see a part of him that has never been revealed.
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“My works – my art is my vulnerability, my offering, my protest and my pain. It’s like peeling away the layers of my personality and seeing into my soul. I had to be ready. I am ready,” he said.
The Managing Director, Excel Signature, Mr Terry Johnson, said the contemporary art exhibition by Jude Olotu themed “Moods Relic of Courage,” starts today at Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Abuja.
Johnson said the exhibition will be Olotu’s first solo exhibition, adding that Olotu has created and nurtured many talents and students of the arts which has led to the creation of the Excel Signature Creative Hub in Abuja Nigeria.
The creative hub is a place where creative artists are nurtured in fine arts, digital arts, metal art, wood art, sculpturing, product design, cinematography and production, music, and photography and given exposure to them on a national and international scale.
Johnson while stressing the ingenuity of Olotu said it was impossible to cursorily just stroll past a Jude Olotu painting as his art has a force that pulls the audience with its intensity and depth.
“You cannot help but stop and stare as you begin to unravel the layers of mystery and thought that go into each masterpiece. The first abstract that I was privileged to see, held me spellbound till I had an epiphany. It was a-seven-foot painting of crescents of gold. It spoke to the beauty, malleability and indestructibility of gold while being stunning enough to be eye-catching. That, and more than 300 equally incredible works of art, sum up the various moods of a prodigious artist who speaks through his craft.”