The word COLLOCATION means a combination of words in a language that happens very often and more frequently than would have happened by chance. There are few similarities and disparities when the word COLLOCATION is used in the context of this exhibition at Thought Pyramid gallery Abuja by five highly experimental and profound Nigerian artists. Unlike the dictionary combination of words that are recurrent, this is the first time these artists are coming together to exhibit. The difference is that exhibition of exploratory artists of this caliber do not happen frequently per se. This is a major outcome of a strategic and long term planning.

In recent times, modernization has produced new creative structures and new forms of expression in visual cultures, inspiring important developments in contemporary art and artists. The artists participating in COLLOCATION are not left out of this development. In fact, they lead the trend of highly experimental Nigerian artists and are among the key players in contemporary Nigerian art.  Their works draw to varying degrees on two key strands of recent art: the productive overlap between art and design, and the development of new modes of critical art practice.

So, whereas many of their contemporaries worked within specific sites or massively-scaled conventional interventions, the artists draw on the visual language of deep space design and on new expansive process-based modes of art-making to create extraordinary repertoire of works.

They combine fresh aesthetic sensibility with constructive critical approach to production. Their works crystallize the realities of their milieu through a sensitive distillation of happenings around them and through a process that evolve a concrete reality as a feedback on issues of environmental, social, economic, political, moral and aesthetic concerns. Their approaches range from the metaphorical to the pragmatic, sometimes serving as models for public re-orientation.

This remarkable exhibition offers fresh plastic idioms that are radical departures from art inspired by sycophancy. It is no doubt a great and rare opportunity for the viewing public, art collectors and critics to witness the works of these revolutionary painters.

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Insightful and generally acknowledged as a master draughtsman, Duke’s pictures are pleasurable and thought provoking, as he is positively rebellious in his art and perhaps one might say, tongue in cheek, his socio-political world views.

Thought Pyramid Art gallery and the French Cultural Centre, are putting on show his recent paintings, and are of the certainty that a view of them, and you will come away with the impression of a rare encounter with pictures conceptualised by an engaging mind and drawn by gifted hands.

Jeff Ajueshi
Creative Director