Martins Aondona Iorliam
Department of Fine and Applied Arts,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
“Chris Afuba: The Sculptor and his AKA Exhibition Years” is a narrative that seeks to examine Afuba’s oeuvre of artistic sensibilities and participation in AKA Exhibitions. AKA is a group of artists, who for two decades held sway in the arena of visual artistic exhibitions East and West of the Niger, beginning in the mid-eighties and going up to the 2000s. This study, therefore, intends to critically analyze the formalistic and stylistic changes that occasioned Afuba’s participation in the AKA group shows and how it has shaped his practice as a multifaceted sculptor, painter and educator. Afuba’s sculptures anchor man’s social-cultural dialectics, and an introspection of his art-forms leads one to navigate between synthesis of satires and socio-political nuances of the complex dynamics of transformations in contemporary Nigerian art. This study on Afuba, will not only add to the existing literature on his person and practice, but also enrich the historical discourse of contemporary Nigerian art history.
KEY WORDS: CHRIS AFUBA, AKA EXHIBITIONS, FORMALISTIC/STYLISTIC CHANGES, HISTORICAL DISCOURSE