This pioneer book focuses on the work of dele jegede, one of the leading Nigerian artists in the last three decades, to reflect on the connections between images and the nation state, the linkages between art and humanity, and the understanding of society through means different from oral and written texts. Various chapters written by prominent art historians, based on the analysis of jegede’s cartoons, drawings, and paintings, reflect extensively on how he has defined and imagined a postcolonial state, in its nakedness and hope, but gesturing towards change and a utopian moment. The book draws on the individual experiences of scholars and professional artists in Nigeria and the Diaspora to paint a complex, multi-dimensional portrait of jegede, one that puts in context his work as a scholar, painter, curator, critic, cartoonist, and administrator. In dreaming of the ideal, jegede’s creative cadence detours from the sheer pursuit of beauty and celebrates a conscious engagement with social realism and political visual expressions. In ways never clearly explained before now, jegede’s artistry, seen in slow motion as offered here, is inevitably tied to activism, a nationalistic credo, and the elevation of the spirits of humankind.   

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà,  Art historian, cartoonist, artist and poet, is a faculty at James Madison University Harrisonburg where she teaches Art of Africa and the African Diaspora. Adesanya researches on tradition and modernity of African cultures. Her research interest includes gender and cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and the intersections of art, conflict, and identity. She also explores migration and displacement, transnationalism, and the new African diaspora. She co-edited Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and the African Diaspora, 2008, and co-authored Etches on Fresh Waters, 2008. Adesanya is the author of Carving Wood, Making History published by Africa World Press in 2012. She is currently working on her next book, Transition and Transformation in Yoruba Art.

Toyin Falola teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. His recent book is Ibadan: Foundation, Growth and Change, 1830-1960.

CATEGORIES

Art, Art History, Biography, Politics/AFRICA