Sounds from Tobiloba Awogbemila's Melodies of Homeland

Nigerian painter and fine art photographer Tobiloba Awogbemila is exploring themes that resonate with topical socio-cultural issues, against the backdrop of widespread violence in many countries, through his body of work entitled “Rhythms of Home – Musical Collection”.

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This collection is an irrepressible composition that advocates for the preservation and propagation of Africa's cultural heritage, as Tobiloba draws images from the domains of music and law to entertain and appeal to the conscience of viewers.

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Tobiloba's legal background is evident in his work, as he evokes an atmosphere of a courtroom session in the gallery with titles like “No Witness”, where he tags paintings using the language of law, and mirrors exhibits, testimonies, and cross-examinations in court sessions on canvas.

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Through his work, Tobiloba records socio-cultural activities, priming law, language, and art as resonating rhythmic ritual sounds via paintings that transcend visual representation, with instances like Trauma depicted as evidence and culture recurring in some images, including wearable objects.

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The artist represents cultural heritage and identity through Yoruba culture-specific images like talking drum, shekere, agogo, and bata, setting dark colours against light ones to create a serene atmosphere that intentionally depicts solemnity, reverence, and devotion in the room.

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Aesthetics emanating from the body of work has more than a surface appeal, as it challenges the viewer to interrogate it beyond the frame, with thick layers of paint functioning like layered time, hands on musical instruments, and imagined performances, portraying memory on canvas as irrepressible evidence of culture and communal existence.

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This collection also inspires ancestral presence and nocturnal devotion through the dominance of a deep blue ground depicted as a sacred field filled with worship objects, such as beads, ropes, gourd, straps, with musical instruments posturing as witnesses across the series.

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Beadwork, ropes, straps, and other relics of culture are crafted by the artist as persons, playing agency roles in close-up compositions, remembering, communicating, and testifying, as seen in works featured in the series, including: Voice of the Shekere, Drums of the Heart, and Shekere Family Tree.

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The piece “Voice of the Shekere” recalls historic events in seeming flashbacks, with silence depicted as a voice, and “the shekere” presented as a static image, hanging at a spot while vibrating visually, conveying the theme of aftermath of a memorable event.

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In Drums of the Heart, the artist animates painting beyond triggering rhythm and melody to a communal voice, with musical instruments like drums grouped like members of a family engaged in conversations or exciting festivities, making the canvas appear to engage the audience in artistic dialogue.

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The piece Shekere Family Tree portrays a familial order, conveying the central message that the family, as an agent of socialisation and cultural transmission, is indispensable, reflecting melody, rhyme, and rhythm via diverse beads, colours, and ascending sizes of lineage footprints.

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Rhythm of Homes – Musical Collection highlights cultural elements preserved in paintings, documenting musical objects and instruments, mirroring the themes of interdependence, continuity, and social positioning, instead of idealising an imagined past like most historical artifacts.

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The artist prioritises communal instruments in the series rooted in common identity, suggesting that belonging, as an embodied phenomenon, is transmitted through feeling, touch, and bonding, with artworks etched in legal frame in this collection, including Tobiloba’s No Witness series.

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Tobiloba treats personal experiences like trauma as exhibits, showcasing how culture is engrained in objects, images, and repetitive patterns, with his blue paintings appearing deliberately troweled to arrest the viewer’s attention, as the palette knife treats every canvas alike, culminating in a wowing masterpiece.

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With dominant themes drawn from the domain of law, language, and art, Rhythms of Homes-Musical Collection features art pieces that viewers from diverse strata of the society will find engaging, combining photographic finishing with a filmmaker’s view finding, the iconic artist builds each painting as a contested scene, staged recollection, and historical archive.

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Traces of Tobiloba’s background in law, filmmaking and photography characterise each piece, as he weaves paintings that heighten the tension between staged memory and documented narratives thematically reflecting divergent voices, capturing emotive and vicarious experiences via materials he transforms into gestures and symbols of cultural identity through painting.

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Tobiloba creatively combines paints, colours, and texture, to create musical rhythms, evoking salient voices of celebration, with art enthusiasts and the general public readily connecting with Rhythms of Homes – Musical Collection as it embodies socio-cultural ethos that resonate with their present realities.

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Tobiloba’s work thrives on melody, lineage, and nostalgia rather than temporal visual configurations, with viewers that see art as an integral part of their culture and aesthetic emblem finding Tobiloba’s paintings rich, textured, and engaging, as it combines sound and visuals to celebrate culture.