MUSINGS OF A STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSE

An analysis of Ato Arinze's surreal drawings. -Akeem Muraina

In the quest for the uttermost, man seeks a wavelength from a sealed memory that keeps records of his yesterday's to be able to fulfill a strengthened self in his today's for tomorrow's gazette. This gazette will eventually becomes another yesterdays and another tomorrow's in infinite. With boldness and a hopeful hope the student had raised his dark and empty lantern, and in a patience full silence he had stepped into the world of dream. Assuredly was he, that the guardian of the night shall see his intense quest, and shall fill his empty lantern with oil and also lit it to brighten his passages. But a student whose night-bound eyes are reluctant and blind to the light of the day, making no effort thereby would not be able to unveil mysteries of the light neither would he be able to make a good mark on the path of the infinite. To dream is paramount as it pre-existed our conscious wakefulness. Obviously so, it is that yesterday's dream that we remembered not that has paved the way for leaps of human developments/great civilization across ages up to the conscious culture of what is prevailing in our modern cities of today into the future of the unknowns.

In this surreal drawing on display, Ato is seeking the deepest impulses of man's heart and mind to guide us to the life's ever unfolding myriads of petals and thorns. This will include passages between life and death viz trials, victories, lost battles, tendered passions, and unattended emotions, denials and acceptances and all that characterize human existence. Once this is understood, seeking the balance and making deliberate moves to buoy our status is pertinen"t on us. An interaction with those aforementioned elements greatly influences man's activities within and beyond the zenith of his comprehension. It determines the quality of his life cycle.

But the one who is dead to life and truth, his soul becomes a battlefield upon which reasons and judgments wages war against his passions, his appetite and his instruments of function. To assist such individual, the artist in his own subtle way had opened a directional track on man's spirituality via these drawn black and white lines from the recess of his dreams which is entitled "The Root of Change".He had employed the use of familiar symbols and allegories to explain these outbound mysteries in simple illustrations. To depict life in non- static perpetual motion he had placed man's five critical sensory organs- (eyes, nose, mouth, ear and the hand) each on a pair of mobile/walking legs. This in the process of growth and gathering of information along the path of our earthly journey. It would be the amount and qualities of the information that we pick and made use of along this path that determines our status among other co-equals in "occupy your sense". Other symbols/codes which he had also used extensively are the ladder, snake, cross, genitals, lactating woman breast, snails and flowing river. The latter represent our aspiration and calculated steps towards its achievement, while the snake represents moments of temptation and uncertainty. The cross is not that of religiosity but that of a burden, a weighty task or trials on our path. Bare genitals are a symbol of strength and procreation. If viewed without sentiment it could also stand for a blooming success. A woman's breast is a spring of fountain that watered and flowered generations to blossom. It is an enriching manure. The snail is slow but it is the patience that heals our wounds as an element of purification. All of these are paradoxical collage of our heart knowledge. They are present in all individual life, even when we choose not to acknowledge them. But knowing all of these and working with them is a treasure to the gate of ingenuity.

Assuredly, our body knows its heritage, its rightful needs and it would not be deceived. If you feed it well you will reap in petals of graceful rose flowers or malnourished it and reap in tons of thorns. For those who are standing in between, the saint had returned in "the return of the saint" riding on the cow whose whole meat, bone, dung, skin, horn, hoot and everything are beneficial to mankind. Just like the eternal truth that never stale. The saint is an activist in the wheel, guiding and guarding the lost flock of our misplaced priorities. In the "9th gate of life" an erected male phallus with spread balls had served both as the eyes and nose of a nun. With the nun wearing a judge's wig instead of her peculiar cape. The artist may be expressing a judgment against celibacy and homosexuality as these are threat to man's continuous existence. It mocks Adams and Eve' bid of procreation.

Evidently there is a lack of bold confidence in "willing and unwilling" at the crucial ripened stage of decision making. Likewise confusion and indecision in "Desire" when faced with many hurdles while the time ticked by. There is betrayal in the "the rumored death of a Dictator" "Portrait of universe" in a clear conviction and recognition. An erected male phallus is celebrated with a hallow which is the spiritual ring of honor. Man's success in supported by his woman on whose body his erection becomes meaningful. The birds having escaped from the cage, which represent shackles of life and prison of individuality to co-habitat and co-flourish the pasture of life, are also celebrated with hallow. Bird represents man's freedom and it is honoured with a medallion. An opened path was laid before man, at the horizon is a ladder where the snake that has been the bane of his trials and temptations is descending so that he can climb up to the place where the welcomes ever smile.

Largely across all of the drawings there is a river flowing silently. Hitherto the river would ever be the oasis and the solace of the sojourners in man's deceitful moments. By one and all of these very exciting drawings on exhibit ,the artist in his muse had been able to sing to us his passion which is a rhythm in all space but neither he nor the arbitrator i.e. the critic can give you the viewers the ear that would arrest the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. You are the way and also the wayfarer, please do see and bear your hold.