Victor Ekpuk
Victor Ekpuk’s creative process involves moments of quietude in which he digs studiously into his memory bank for visual clarity. The quiet search for acuity, very revealing of the artist’s interest in human experiences, frames Reminiscences and Recent Musings. In a way, this solo effort is a retrospective because it draws from several bodies of work produced by the artist between 1996 and 2013. These 20 works represent the artist’s meditations on his social experiences, drawing from Nigeria and the United States, his country of birth and residency respectively, and as with most contemporary artists, other worlds that he has experienced in the course of several international artists residencies in the last few years.
…Using invented scripts and imageries that evolved from the cryptic nsibidi writing system that is autochthonous to eastern Nigeria, Ekpuk translates the human experience both transparently and symbolically. It is no secret that the nsibidi ideographic forms now function as a conceptual backdrop for him. Earlier on, he drew extensively from the writing system, as is evident in the paintings: The Three Wise Men (triptych, acrylic on panel, 1996), Heaven’s Gate (acrylic on prayer board, 2000), and Idaresit (acrylic on canvas, 2004). At that point, Ekpuk was more interested in aesthetic memory, the idea that one can subject a common cultural wellspring to formal analysis in order to create new aesthetic possibilities. Except one that has some familiarity with the nsibidi form, the three works are open to multiple interpretations. They present what the art historian Chike Aniakor calls the “veiling of message [as being] the fortress of the artistic impulse.”[i] The works may have specific messages, but they are not directly accessible and require the artist’s intervention in order to unlock them.
For more information and images visit: https://mortonfineart.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/nigerian-artist-victor-ekpuks-solo-reminiscences-current-muses-opens-at-mfa-in-dc/