By Onwukamike Nwachukwu

Penultimate week, at Didi Museum, Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island , a feast of  colours served in engagingly creative compositions,  opened to the viewing public.The show tagged, ‘The Old and the New Testaments’ will feature Bona Ezeudu’s  emotional representation of existential issues in colours.

From March 28 through Sunday, April 7, veteran artist and founding member of  Enugu State based  AKA Group of Exhibiting Artists (founded 1986), will display the latest collection of his art  to the Lagos viewing public. The show will mark a return to regular solo-showing by Ezeudu who until three years ago was a regular exhibitor in several mainstream art houses across the country.

Since the mid 1980s Mr. Ezeudu had been in the vanguard of art collectors’ choice, along with his colleagues in the AKA Group such as Nsikak Essien, El Anatsui, Obiora Udechukwu, Tayo Adenaike,  the late Bonaventure Okafor etc. Ezeudu reigned from the visual arts scene  in the  1990s.

*One of the works exhibited at the ongoing exhibition

Even when the  group’s yearly outings in major cities of Nigeria (and sometimes abroad) became less frequent after 1993, Ezeudu was one of the standing members that found a way of  sustaining the visual tradition.

He left teaching at  the  Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu to fully focus on  private studio practice and for the running of his studio, Bona Gallery. Through that venture he remained consistent in the mainstream art practice until the shock of the abduction and subsequently, killing of his undergraduate only child  even after payment of ransom demanded by his abductors, was made.

Following that harrowing experience,Ezeudu’s return to the exhibition hall is read as a bounce-back in some quarters. Today’s exhibition is more remarkable to pundits who have seen the  quality of the works.

The paintings still retain such rich colour identity that marks Ezeudu’s composition. Rather than show signs of a lull in his practice, the masterly imprimatur of the artist exudes profusely in the works. However, the deep concepts and themes running through individual pieces buttress the show’s title, ‘The Old and the New Testaments’

Featuring 42 selected paintings, the collection serves a selection of Ezeudu’s paintings and drawings, produced within the past 35 years of his professional practice.

Among the works to be shown are: Drummer at Birds Eye View, a painting with concentric circles on analogous hues overlayed with contrasting black and blue lines. The painting depicts the flow of rhythms from the vibration of the drums.

Another work, First Outing, oil on board, represents a crowd in brilliant patches of colours. It speaks of the colourful nature of coronation and other special ceremonies.

Other works include; Migrants, Blue and Red Dialogue, Birds at Home and Mother-Grand Mother on a Palm Sunday.