Osi Audu

Osi Audu, a Nigerian born artist, was educated in Nigeria and the United States. For over a decade now, he has maintained a strong professional presence in Korea, Japan, Great Britain, United States, Italy, Germany, Austria and Africa through highly acclaimed exhibitions of his paintings. His work is in several private and public collections including The British Museum; The Horniman Museum, London; Schmidt Bank, Bayreuth, Germany; The Wellcome Trust, London and The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
Clearly an accomplished artist, Audu’s technical skills and innovative approach to the making of art, allows him to create evocative images with considerable force. His command of drawing, mastery of the paint medium, composition and scale all contribute to his ability to penetrate the level of associative reaction and imbue his subject with a kind of life force. The result is that he restructures, transforms and controls physical existence, as we know it, in his work.
Audu uses his poetic sensibility effectively to explore the theme of the « Body of Water ». He is able to create a personal visual metaphor with a plastic water bottle and the tail of a mermaid, in order to demonstrate the logical continuation and expansion of his interest in the theme of water, and the interrelationship of myth and science. Audu has drawn our attention away from the world of identifiable shapes and colors that we encounter and interpret without thinking. Instead, he invites us to reflect on the ways in which we identify or interpret what we encounter in art and in the world. It is these preoccupations that form the main thrust of Audu’s work and are its real strength.
Audu’s paintings contain a philosophical dimension of profound implications. His creations are a form of intellectual research that engages viewers by teasing them into asking themselves questions about perception, and the process of seeing and understanding. While many contemporary African artists emphasize a link with or a departure from Africa’s traditional past, Audu, by contrast, has developed a unique representational idiom, which guarantees a place for him in the marketplace of modern art.
Audu says, « The artist in exile goes through a mental sifting process: some aspects of his culture become irrelevant in the changed social circumstances. Others may even become meaningless. On the other hand, some things which one had simply taken for granted at home without giving them too much thought, may assume a special significance. »