By Osa Mbonu-Amadi

Adeola Oparinu’s Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ọ̀run is a deep reflection on descent, encounter, and renewal. In eight abstract works that look like one another, the artist translates a piece of poem on weather and the sky into spectacular paintings on canvas.

In those paintings, we see thick, layered rolls of white paints and different shades of blue representing thick clouds and possibly the deep blue ocean in the horizon. The falling lines in most of the paintings communicate the sense of descent as captured in the poetic lines:

“…The elders…tell of clouds that gather for many days, moving across the land,
watching, waiting, holding their weight in silence. But when the time comes, the sky lowers itself, not all at once, but gently, like a bow. And as it bows, it begins to release.”

Similarly, the circling blues and the heavy smears capture the motion inward, representing the emotion instilled by the abstract paintings.

The works are not direct copies of the sky, instead, their presence is established by material contrast. For instance, the combination of heavy impasto and soft application of paints on the canvas surfaces makes the works look as if they are sculptured pieces, and at the same time, painted. It is this material contrast that created the tension which runs across the series. We see accumulation and release. We see gravity and surrender. We see movement and rest.

The storyline behind the series moves like a rite performed slowly. It starts with Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ṣíṣe (The Kneeling That Begins to Pour). Here, the first quiet surrender is marked by weight represented by white paints and falling vertical lines. Then the surrender intensifies with the actual release of Ìkúnlẹ̀ Títú, the hovering of Ìkúnlẹ̀ Yíyí, and the returning pause of Ìkúnlẹ̀ Pàdé. Then we see Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ìdákẹ́jẹ́ become still as if in meditation.

From that state of calm, the series begins to experience a form of rebirth. In guided motion, Ìkúnlẹ̀ Tún Yí comes back, more knowledgeable. Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ní Ilẹ̀ announces that it has arrived, and of its intention to remain. Finally, Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ìjà emerges from something similar to the Big Bang that resulted in the physical universe as we know it today!

Together, the eight paintings in this series present themselves to the viewer as emotional picture in which the sky is a guardian, confessor, traveler, and witness.

Two qualities that make Oparinu’s Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ọ̀run (Kneeling Sky) attractive are its ambuiquity and the emotions it incites in the viewer. If the paintings were pieces of musical compositions, the cardences would be described as imperfect because the resolutions are not perfect; they leave the viewer, or listener, in a state of suspension, which enables them to feel, rather than see, that heaven-and-earth of a sky bow.

The voices of the elders brought into the texts that describe the works suggest that the actions of the sky are rooted in the Yoruba culture and cosmology. The viewer, through the series, learns lessons in humility, endurance, and on how the high and the low, and the above and the below engage in the dogs’ play of fall-for-me-I-fall-you, necessary for peaceful coexistence and harmony.

As was hinted earlier, one of the qualities that make Adeola Oparinu’s Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ọ̀run compelling is that the paintings didn’t set out to show what the sky is; instead they make the viewer feel what the sky does when it makes up its mind to kneel. To fully understand Ìkúnlẹ̀ Ọ̀run requires that the viewer be patient, looks at it slowly and long enough without distraction.