Tunde Odunlade: "Dreaming Between Worlds"
Tunde Odunlade is one of the leading figures in the resurgence of traditional African art to come out of Oshogbo, Nigeria, in the late 1960s. A second-generation artist from Ibadan, Odunlade is a freelance artist who spends time in both Nigeria and the United States. Like many of his peers, he is more than just a painter. He also works with hand-made paper, print-making, textiles, and the intricate art of batik, a craft that developed from the tradition of adire cloth dyeing for which the Yoruba people were famous. Odunlade's work has been exhibited widely in Africa, Germany, Britain, Spain, and the United States, where he was the first African artist to exhibit at the Arts Festival of Atlanta in 1987.
Bio
Odunlade, who manages his own music and dance troupe, is an accomplished musician as well. He plays the flute, the agidigbo (or mbira percussion instrument), and congas, and has several record albums to his name.
Odunlade's art work and the techniques he employs show striking originality. His batik pieces are highly textured and almost three-dimensional. In fact, he uses three different layers of fabric - a background layer and two top layers that are cut and stitched to the background before he begins the actual waxing and dyeing process. The result is a highly textural relief seldom seen in batik work. As Odunlade explains, "That's my own contribution to the development of batik around the world. I've never seen anyone else making batik in that way. My images draw on the rich history of Yoruba art, culture, modern day life in Nigeria, and my passion for music. My art uses both contemporary and traditional techniques."
Curator's Statement
The art of Tunde Odunlade is a prime example of artwork that is at once rooted in tradition and also moves consciously through and responds to contemporary impulses. Often, Western critics see the art and artists of certain schools of African art only as charming producers of work just outside of the mainstream of what is considered innovative and up-to-date. Yet for those who look outside the colonial lens of aesthetic baggage, the reward is great indeed. Whether responding to the potent spiritual and mythic histories of his Yoruba tradition with figurative forms or abstractions, Tunde has found a way to grow from his roots and reach a place of deep creative meditation. His abstractions are loaded with forms forever on the verge of transformative becoming. The beauty of his abstract works on paper are at once calming and thought provoking. There are entire spiritual worlds living in the dyes he has applied to the fibers, as if he has tried to capture on paper a glimpse of the world only meant for dreams and soul-induced trance states.
The textiles in this exhibition, some inspired by African tradition and others, as he has informed me, of his admiration of the quilters of Gees Bend, show an artist still growing and experimenting with his formal skills. To think of an African male textile artist reaching aesthetically across the waters to break creative bread with the female descendants of enslaved Africans is touching and profound. To understand the importance of this inspired exchange is to be healed. It is a great task and joyful burden to keep and pass down the remembered and honored traditions of one's ancestors. To merge these ancient techniques with contemporary aesthetic experience is Tunde's brave and fearless artistic journey.
Artist Statement
Batik is a piece of cloth, fabric, fiber, or paper bead waxed and dyed to come out in form of painting which could either be monochrome or multi-color.
My type of Batik has taken a totally different form from the traditional style of batik making. In other words I've taken Batik to another level which I call "Relief Batik. I overlayed various fabrics of different weights, color, texture or any found materials of interesting history to it, or it could even simply be materials newly purchased from the market. but the the most important aspect is carefully knitting this various materials together in collage form, before beginning to wax and dye it and I end up with a three dimensional illusional breath-taking organic piece"
That is my contribution to the tradition of Batik. Pieces that explicate this historical collage are titled "Family Ties" which has materials used by my immediate family and some extended family as well.
