By Japhet Davidson

As part of his mission to take arts to the grassroots, the director of Win Arc Gallery, Archie Abia, relocated from the ever busy Ikeja to Peace Estate Baruwa,Ipaja and ever since then he has been doing everything possible to change the perception of the people about arts.

Last week, the students of Golden Way Academy Peace Estate paid a visit to the gallery. The visit which was part of the school’s vision which is to bring the best out of every child no matter their deficiency was very rewarding as the students went home fulfilled for the day.

It was indeed a marriage of convinence as both the director of Win Arc and the school as both parties were happy as the students had a feel of what art is apart from what they have been reading from textbooks.

During the visit, the students who were led by their art instructor, Educator Chinelo Amobi were received by Archie Abia who took the students into various sessions mentoring, studio visit and gallery visit where they were shown some of the things they have not seen before at the gallery and at the end of the day, the students were happy for been part of the visit.

First, it was the mentoring session where the director Archie Abia took time to introduce the gallery and share his experiences to the students. According to him , WinArc started over 20years ago at Ikeja but was later moved to its permanent site at Ipaja.” He said, “Art has has gone beyond painting, our mission is to teach and train future artists and your school is the first to benefit from it.”

He told them about the great potentials in arts, “art is sweet like any other profession, it will enable you to have multiple income, you can be anything in any profession and still practice arts.”

Then it was time for studio visit, where the students were introduced to some of some of the materials used for arts like the canvas, stretcher, glue, paint, brush, easel etc. He also introduced the fibre mosaic, paper,glass and tie. Art has various media like painting, metal, drawing and graphics.

Then the students were taken to the gallery where over 200 art works in various media were displayed. The director went on to explain the works to the students who in turn asked many questions which the director answered.

Speaking about the visit, Archie Abia said, “Glory be to God. one of the reasons I relocated Win Arc Gallery to Peace Estate Baruwa was realised today, We hosted the students of Golden Way Academy at the Center. Amazing children, very interesting children”.

On their part, the elated students who could not hide their feelings shared their experinces; for Daniel Stephen, JS2 class captain, “I learnt that art speaks for the voiceless, art inspires the nation and art shows a clearer picture of the future, it brings happiness and used as a form of expression.”

Basit Isag, JS2 “He taught us not to throw some trash way like water cans, we can collect them, keep them safe and they will be handy for us to use as part of materials for arts.”

According to Abeeb Azeezat, “the visit has opened my eyes to many things about arts that I never knew, I really taught that art was just about drawing and painting, but the visit has made us to understand that art is just more than that. Art is about thoughts that you can imagine and sketch down to inspire the nation.”

The high point of the visit was the presentation of an art work to the school by the Win Arc Director, Archie Abia.