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The cultural
practices and beliefs of the people of Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State, will be
showcased when Aderinsoye Aladegbongbe’s solo exhibition titled ‘A
Visual Representation’ opens on Monday, November 29.

The exhibition,
comprising about 50 paintings and drawings, will open by 12 noon at the
Yusuf Grillo Art Gallery, School of Art and Design, Yaba College of
Technology, Yaba, Lagos. A chief of Ilara-Mokin, Abiye Ojo, will chair
the opening while traditional ruler of the town, Oba Aderemi
Adefehinti, will be the guest of honour.

Briefing reporters
on the show, Aladegbongbe disclosed that it emanated from his Masters
programme at the University of Benin where he decided to focus on his
hometown.

“I left there aged
11 but right now I’m about 46 years old. So, it’s a long time and I
felt that I should project their culture and some rites that are no
longer observed. Because they are not observed, this is a way we can
allow incoming generations to be aware of things that had happened in
the past.

“There is the
Ajalemogun rite that is no longer celebrated. Ajalemogun is a very
tall, lady figure, taller than a NEPA pole. Its normal hairdo is Suku
and during the celebration, ladies are not supposed to compete with the
gods so nobody wears Suku. They believe that it’s a god of
fruitfulness, so people looking for the fruit of the womb will come
from Ekiti and Osun States. Some come from as far as Benin City and
Ijebu. The radius of the bottom of that particular masquerade is like
about 15 to 25 feet. Hefty men carry it but it is decorated with
different shades of the palm fronds.”

He was able to
recapture the image of the Ajalemogun rite because he witnessed one as
a young boy. His late father and some elders of the town, he disclosed,
were very helpful in the course of the research.

Aladegbongbe
started making the paintings and mixed media that will be showcased in
‘A Visual Representation’ in 2006 when he started the Masters programme
in Fine Art. Though he also works with metal, none will be among the
exhibits.

“The exhibition I
had in 2006 included metal works, there was none last year but the
subsequent one after ‘A Visual Representation’ will show metal works.
There are some metal works I’m working on presently; masks and all what
not,” said the artist who has been holding annual exhibitions since
2006.

The artist and
lecturer also spoke on the noticeable dripping effect in his works. “I
graduated from Yabatech as a student in 1992. If you were present at
the exhibition I had last year, I exhibited some works that I did in
1992 as a graduating student and I discovered that I have been painting
like this because some of the paintings were actually like this. It was
in the late 1990s that the consciousness came. It’s really a
spontaneous reaction; it’s an impressionistic style of painting. It was
in the early 2000s and now in 2010 that the thing broke out in its full
revelation. I’ve been working like this even as a student and it is a
style I call Scraphito Dripping Technique.”

Asked what makes
the forthcoming exhibition unique from ‘Times of Life’ he had at the
same venue last year, Aladegbongbe said, “What you will discover is
that it is not a realistic painting. Yet by the time you look into it,
they are paintings that become suggestive, you begin to see things that
are not revealed.”

A Visual Representation opens on November 29 and is on till December 11 from 9am to 6pm daily.