joseph obanubi
How do you relieve tight quads?
These ones saw ascension first II
Your name
Joseph Obanubi
Place of birth
Lagos, Nigeria
Place where you live now
Lagos, Nigeria
3 words to describe you
Potpourri, Laidback, Multi-layered
Why do you take pictures?
I take pictures as a memory exercise and also to document times. I also do it for the sake of interest, whim, and sometimes the need to just keep taking them. I do have a personal stock... so yeah! Image making to my practice is a conduit.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Anything really. I consume a lot of things and I try to stay conscious of these things. From simple conversations, sound, fashion, colour, composition, big ass technology... anything really.
Who are your influences?
Jacolby Satterwhite, Ruud van Empel, Olafur Eliasson, Yayoi Kusama, Sokari Douglas Camp, a long list really!!
What determines the subject matter you choose?
It does change from time to time depending on what I am working on. My practice is quite central to humans although I employ a surrealist and sometimes foreign approach. Often, I do enjoy taking a step back for my whim and unconscious mind to take over and they also determine the subject matter I choose.
What impact would you like your art to have?
I can't control this variable so I'd rather just focus on the work. I want the observer of my work to ''feel'' (maybe one that can't be described).
What artwork do you never get bored with?
It has to be one of my earliest pieces, Self Portrait I, 2018. This is how I feel right now, it may be different tomorrow or the next minute. lol.. I enjoy life's ephemerality.
Is there anything you want to add?
Never submit passwords through Google Forms. lol. Have fun!
Breast plate
Number two
The imaginary worlds of Joseph Obanubi
Text by Nadia E Carrizo
About nothing but true events is the title given to the recent project by emerging artist Joseph Obanubi that brings together a series of digital collages created during the pandemic. It is a visually striking proposal: bright colors and surreal compositions that will force you to question what you are seeing.
Obanubi is a multimedia artist from Lagos, Nigeria. His artistic practice was recognized by the Contemporary African Photography Award (2021), and the British Council Award for Emerging Artists, establishing him as a promising figure in the global art circuit. His project About nothing but true events is proof of the artist's creative eye.
Obanubi's digital works portray, from a personal perspective, everyday life during the confinement of 2020. Uncertainty is one of the main elements reflected in the collages. Through catharsis, the artist took refuge in art and gave free rein to the imagination and creative exercise. As a result, Obanubi delivers an artistic project that shows his interpretation of a global crisis, as well as allows the viewer to draw his own conclusions.
Confused images, dissociated bodies, and imaginary realities coexist in these collages that are visually influenced by the aesthetics of pop art, surrealism, and Afrofuturism. The artist's experience in the field of graphic design and advertising can also be seen in his visual references. Digital tools and the coexistence of these artistic currents allow the artist to swim in a sea of possibilities.
Obanubi has created a project that explores the relationship between identity, fantasy, technology, and globalization through disconcerting pieces that offer an unusual and subjective look at these concepts, the result of experimentation and versatility. One of the most interesting aspects of About nothing but true events is the vindication of African identity through science fiction and historical fantasy.
Works such as These ones saw ascension first II, How do you relieve tight quads?, Breast plate, On tiptoe or Another word for satire? create an unreal world that brings new possible subjectivities such as those of a "human" figure whose knees are directed towards his back, the head of a girl superimposed on a foreign body, or a body with an arm in place of the head. These figures can be corporeal and incorporeal, human and posthuman.
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Another word for satire II?
On tip toe
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The artist represents reality by mixing different images in which the figures are constituted from the synthesis of forms. Therefore, the elements are not represented as they "are" or as they "look", but as they have been conceived by the mind.
As if it were visual destruction, the figures are juxtaposed with different planes in a single one, creating a two-dimensional and synthetic composition. As well, the different points of view of the figures are synthesized in a single plane. This way of using collage is reminiscent of cubism.
Obanubi's works focus on perception rather than representation. Each collage creates its own independent reality. Another visual feature that also characterizes the pieces of this project is the predominance of (non)human figures over the background. Those unreal characters or figures that are part of this project allow us to imagine alternative futures. The latter can be interpreted as an implicit social critique. In this sense, Obanubi brings with him the ideas proposed by Afrofuturism, which is undoubtedly the reflection of identity evolution. The Western view of Africa and the African Diaspora is plagued by clichés that include poverty, segregation, war, and, more recently, terrorism. Afrofuturism breaks down stereotypes, positive or negative, using elements from other realities.
Afrofuturism makes it possible to think of a less constrained reality in the future, and produces a profound critique of the current social, racial and economic orders. What happens is that in a posthuman universe, the body as we know it ceases to matter, fracturing and finally dissolving the bonds of stereotypes.
The motifs of the Afrofuturism movement have been adapted in contemporary art, as Joseph Obanubi demonstrates from experimentation in digital art that, instead of offering hope for a better tomorrow, creates an identity without defined time and space, and gives prominence to those who did not have it.
About nothing but true events is an artistic project that starts from the smallest in the everyday as inspiration, to defiantly declare that creativity and imagination are our best tools in the face of the great challenges of our planet, and Obanubi does it through a metaphorical celebration without dissimulation of African cultures and their futures.
Local Archive I
Another word for satire?
About Nothing but True Events
Project statement
The body of work is a creative exploration characterised by impulse, whim and fantasy while focusing on transition and nowness from a personal stance and as it relates to my practice. I began this series during the lockdown as a get-away/daily exercise and more importantly as an avoidance of creative block.
I was curious about the idea of beginning a thing and letting it take shape, the notion of nurturing and uncertainty as they exist side by side. Furthermore, I also was concerned with the works reflecting the current times (pandemic) typified by uncertainty and presentness. The body of work is a continuous presentation that seeks to interpret alternatively personal/daily events.
