The Auchi School to which Ajayi belong radicalised the use of vibrant colours in painting.
Vibrant colours and striking, confident forms are the hallmarks of his paintings. In this interview, famous painter, OLU AJAYI tells FUNKE OSAE-BROWN why he is not afraid to infuse the beautiful on canvass and use pulsating colours with bravado.
His studio located on the penthouse on a white coloured building on Military Street, Onikan is enveloped in quietness. A sunny Tuesday June morning may not be the right time for an artiste to create but Olu Ajayi’s studio is pregnant with so many stories to tell. An unfinished Wole Soyinka portrait is hanging on an easel while squashed tubes of paints are strewn on a work table nearby.
Olu Ajayi is a well-known name in the Nigerian art industry. He is one of the early pioneers of water colour as a medium in Nigeria. His show in 1990 ‘Visions in Colour’ influenced the face of art in Nigeria. It was a time when art was not vibrant. Oil was not used then as it is today.
Ajayi’s emergence on the art scene could be traced to an era when the Auchi school popularised and liberated the artist palette in Nigeria. The Auchi School to which Ajayi belong radicalised the use of vibrant colours in painting.
While growing up, broom marks became a canvas for Ajayi.
His foray into art began when he was a child. Growing up in Akoko Edo in Edo State saw him experimenting with all kinds of things as a curious kid. He experimented with clay. The broom marks left by the gardener’s broom in his father’s compound would later become the canvass on which he drew his thoughts.
“The broom marks became a canvas for me that after sweeping I will now go and draw on that sandy surface,” he recalls vividly. “It started materialising when I got to secondary school and we started a school magazine. I became a cartoonist and then it grew from there and I decided to enrol for GCE because art was not taught in secondary school.”
He enrolled for Fine Art in the GCE and he passed brilliantly. And so, Ajayi opted to study Fine Art in a Polytechnic because he wanted to be a painter and not just an artist. “That interest made me to attend Auchi Polytechnic in 1980/81. I left there in 1984 that was about 30 years ago. So that formed my background and other elements came in to influence my interest to become robust and mature in art.”
Ajayi’s world view has been influenced by war comic magazines and other magazines that are about heroes. “I just love their drawings. I just love the anatomy, the daring angles which the illustrators used to illustrate the story.”
That experience spurred him to produce his own comic story in 1979/80. He had a comic magazine which he produced. He was appointed the chair of the comic team that produced a comic book on Wole Soyinka. He was the head of the illustrative committee of the comic book.
His works are largely influenced by Adolph Frederick Reinhardt
In addition, his works are largely influenced by Adolph Frederick Reinhardt, an abstract painter who was active in New York beginning in the 1930s and whom he describes as his favourite artist.
“I was just marvelled by the way and his choice of light,” he says fondly of Reinhardt. “His painting was always fascinating. Then I moved on to Salvador Dali, a prominent Spanish surrealist painter from Spain.
All of these foreign artistes influenced my works. I have worked with people like chief Ojugwuo as a cartoonist for The Observer in 1980/81. I would visit the Benin museum and Edugbo gallery and see him at work and also interact with other apprentices at work. I also got influenced by road side artist, galleries too. I decided that I was going to be an artist in secondary school. Although I was a science student, but when I left I went into school to read Fine Art.”
For him, consistent in his style, choice of medium and quality of his works have been the defining factors behind the brand Olu Ajayi. He started practicing as a professional artist in Lagos way back in 1986. He has his first outing around 1986/87, at an exhibition. It was a show he was part of that formally launched him in 1988. However what he referred to as his major outing was in 1990 and ever since he has had his presence in other areas of the art.
He was Chairman Society of Nigerian Artist for six years and was part of the founding board of trustees for Visual Artist Association in Nigeria. He is also the founding member of Guild of Professional Fine Artists. He has helped and consulted for galleries.
“As a passionate artist, I do things that are related to art,” he tells me. “I try to do things with high standard. That has been the driving force behind my creativity to produce the best of art. Working many materials require a lot of creativity and ideas. I have not been doing it deliberately to build a brand. I think all my actions crystalised into a brand for Olu Ajayi but now that I know it means that we have to nurture it more. Where I can’t leave it up to half way anymore. I am going to employ the acceptable influence of doing a brand to benefit the art and to benefit the country.”
Ajayi is an energetic artist who has tried his hands on many media.
Ajayi is an energetic artist who has tried his hands on many media. But what he loves most is the use of colours. “I like to move them on the surface. I like to attack my surface. Pastel does not give me that because it is so genteel. You have to pamper it because it is frail and fragile. Next to that for me is water colour, because it is a bit wet you can wait for it to dry. Next to that is acrylic and then my best is oil and in that order: oil, acrylic, water colour and pastel. The best that I feel free with is charcoal on paper that is drawing. I love drawing charcoal on paper. I can express myself with lines. I feel free with lines and then I am also very good with black and white that is Echo line ink on paper, so those are the areas. I have not really experimented with mosaic and mixed media. No, I am not a mixed media person. I believe that with time I would attempt it the way I want to push them. Oil has its emotions and you can stretch it as far as you want and it is very mobile.”
Artists of Ajayi’s calibre have pioneered one art movement or the other. But Olu Ajayi he is not an artist who will enslave people when it comes to creative ideas. “Well when people continuously sit down and want to pioneer a movement and want to have a band of boys, my temperament is not to enslave people, but when you talk about what I have pioneered I can confidently tell you.”
To emphasis his point, he beckons on me as he walks towards a painting place on his studio wall. “I would show you a paint I did in 1990 and you would think it was done this year. You would think that the colours were done this year. The painting would look like a familiar painting you see all around, but I tell you the painting you see is of 1990. And as at 1990 the art scene was not this colourful, at that time people were using modest colours, people were not bold enough to paint with blue, red, green. It is the Auchi School that started that. Then it was a strange thing to see, because of all the colours. People were used to brown but when we brought our paintings people were so excited and amazed because they were so colourful.”
Ajayi’s works have been sought after at auctions. They have not done badly at all. “My works has been successful in terms of figures, but I am a reluctant artist at going to auction houses. Why I am reluctant is this: it gives you a very false feeling. If you depend on the auction, yes it helps the market but if you keep thinking about the auction, then you will not get the realistic price of your work and before you know it, you would not get the right range. The auction is just a futuristic projection, but the range that is the studio price of what people can walk in and buy the painting without going to auction. The auction is a game of ego where people bid and want to outbid each other, so you have to get your range, but you can get your range by a walk into the studio so that is the starting value of a paint. So going to the auction all the time is not something I really look forward to rather I would like clients to buy my works directly from the studio.”