Zaria Art School in new streak
The forum which served as a midpoint for both lecturers and students especially of the twin-departments – Fine Arts and Industrial Design – helped the more than 60 participants from undergraduate and postgraduate students refresh their skills in two-dimensional forms: painting and drawing. There were also Mr. Tony Emodi and Mr. Emmanuel Eroka both from […]
The forum which served as a midpoint for both lecturers and students especially of the twin-departments – Fine Arts and Industrial Design – helped the more than 60 participants from undergraduate and postgraduate students refresh their skills in two-dimensional forms: painting and drawing. There were also Mr. Tony Emodi and Mr. Emmanuel Eroka both from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos who gave a perfect blend of ideas and techniques.
Beginning from Samaru market, artists lined up easels, paint brushes and other materials in hand, to paint the scenery of activities which scaped and formed the route down to the university’s main gate.
Addressing participants before takeoff, lead facilitator of the workshop, Dr. Gambo Duniya, said “this painting and drawing workshop is intended to serve as an avenue for creative minds to interact and share drawing and painterly ideas, away from the normal studio setting.
“The workshop is also expected to expose professionals and student artists to the numerous possibilities in art, using varied media and techniques or experiments,” he said.
He advised participants to feel free and express themselves in the Zaria Art School’s freedom of expression, using forms before them and the materials that suited their creative impulse.
Easels were mounted by some artists while other artists took strategic positions that best suited their views. On the other hand, a good number of participants were seen squatting on the ground with their drawing boards, taking artistic view of their creative taste which added up to the ecstatic tonic for the artists.
The venue was an utmost contradiction to studio environment as it offered seeming challenges but mostly to the advantage of the participants like the traffic of people in the market on the other side of the road, the moving vehicles and cyclists as well as sounds/noises generated by the traffics, contributed in shaping the aura of the workshop’s venue into a disorganized and noisy environment.
According to one of the participants, Kunde Mathew, “this is unlike studio situation which is usually calm and serene; however, the venue was probably the best for that kind of workshop since the participants of the workshop later converted the inherent challenges therein, into creative opportunities by displaying their artistic talents in various two-dimensional forms.”
An angle to the workshop which many fancied was the open thematization “Scapes and Forms” which paved way for diverse artistic creations. In view of that, it was common to see interplay of different media in different styles in the works the participating artists. Hence, one artist is painting while another artist sitting next is drawing in charcoal. But most importantly, the open theme favoured creative diversity on the part of the participating artists especially on the choice of art expression which was generally seen in their works. The likes of sculptor Dr. Ken Okoli opted to take the photographic aspect of the event, while Mr. Wesley a sculpture lecturer revealed the other side of his artistic flair in painting.