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Artist Statement:
About me:
I earned my tertiary degrees
in the Nigeria and the United
States. (Painting at
University of Ife, Ile-Ife,
Nigeria and Industrial Design
at the Kansas City Art
Institute, Kansas City,
Missouri. The pursuit of
careers as artist and designer
has been necessitated,
punctuated and even
interrupted by ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
HATCH presents: 'Jide Aje
Cafe 1923, Hamtramck, Michigan
November 2007
'Jide Aje: Familiar & Unknown.
Charles H. Wright Museum,
Detroit, Michigan
August-October 2008
National Black Fine Art Show
2009
Manhattan, New York
February 13-15 2009
HATCH presents: Abstract
Ephemera 1
an exhibition of paintings by
'Jide Aje
Cafe 1923, ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
National Conference of
Artists, Detroit, MI
J. Rainey Gallery, Detroit, MI
...
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Collections:
National Gallery of Modern
Art, Lagos, Nigeria.
Lekan Fadina, Lagos, Nigeria
Rebecca Aikhomu, Lagos,
Nigeria
Ona Dike, Lagos, Nigeria
Wale Odeleye, Lagos, Nigeria
Millie Landrum, Detroit,
Michigan
Shirley Woodson, Detroit,
MIchigan
The Laura McIntyre Collection,
Hamtramck, Michigan
The Henry Ford Health Systems
Corporate Collection, Michigan
...
Further Information
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Motley City
Detroit's the story at a new art show.
Curator Camille Ann Brewer believes the revival and relevance of the struggling city of Detroit can be fueled by creativity in the visual arts. That's good news, because the current show at the Brandywine Workshop provides plenty of evidence that 2-D art in the Motor City is alive and kicking.
As usual at Brandywine, the show as a whole looks great. I might quibble that the photographs, drawings, paintings and prints by some 23 artists are almost too uniform in scale, ranging from about the size of a sheet of typing paper up to 22 by 30 inches. This superficial sameness � like that of the briefcase-toting models on Deal or No Deal � makes it a little too easy to overlook individuality.
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That would be a mistake: There is much that is excellent and original here. A minority of the work is straightforward representation. Even though her eyes are closed, there's not a chance we'd mistake Richard Lewis' oversize conte My Aunt Rodda Sleeping for a posthumous portrait. Lewis captures a moment and a mood: the way the weight of flesh surrenders to the fatigues of the day. Gregory Johnson's My Daddy's Car, a watercolor, must be based directly on a classic snapshot of all the kids lined up beside the family car. It's the only car in the show as I recall, and its presence wasn't Detroit-related or specific to that city. Shirley Woodson's delightfully expressive oil pastel Red Flowers in Landscape recalls the curves and angles in Franz Marc's African-influenced paintings of nature.
Most artists in the show are members of the Michigan chapter of the National Conference of Artists, an organization promoting African-American art. I had the opportunity to speak with artist and industrial designer 'Jide Aje. Born and reared in Nigeria, he studied in Africa and the United States and came to the Detroit area to work with automobiles. Aje's African-inspired mixed-media abstractions incorporate symbols and symbolic colors and are often executed on fabric. (The ones here are on paper.) The Yoruba title Amulunduni means something like "He who brings the sweets of the city." Yellows and reds, warmer colors than Aje usually uses; spirals, a favorite motif; and an overarching framing pattern develop the theme of an enlightened, joyous community. Aje II is dedicated to the Yoruba orisha Aje (the same name as the artist). Her concern with commerce and wealth is evident in a series of circles representing cowry shells and coins. Her colors � blue and white � dominate the painting.
Abstraction is the primary approach in the show. Wavy stripes of glittery green acrylic carve energetic diagonal swaths across M. Saffell Gardner's Downtown Rush No. 3. A bold passage of magenta in Allie McGhee's O What a Nite surges out from the darkness like a fragment of overheard music, while Senghor Reid's The Naked Prey 1 (that's a detail of The Naked Prey 2 on p. 28), one of the standout pieces in the show, is packed with strata containing small, varicolored markings.
The most contemporary piece of social commentary is probably Jason H. Phillip's graphite Still Rockin/Ropes and Chains. Its bold graphic sensibility pairs a handsome young man, dead, handcuffed and framed in a noose with his bling-ified living doppelg�nger, a prisoner to ropes and chains of gold. The message I got was that both have fallen victim to evil.
An elegiac commentary but not obviously a critique, Valerie Fair's two pointillist abstractions It Wasn't Much but It Was Mine, from her "Katrina House Series," suggest haunting memories.
This show is part of the Brandywine Workshop's ongoing American Cities series (Atlanta, New Orleans and Oakland-San Francisco are on the agenda). I couldn't find an identifiable Detroit sensibility, but that's not so surprising in today's cosmopolitan world. It's enough to encounter commitment, sophisticated artists and an ongoing engagement with art in a city more commonly associated with tires and transmissions.
(r_rice@citypaper.net)
Detroit: Contemporary Works on Paper Through April 26, Printed Image Gallery, Brandywine Workshop, 730 S. Broad St., 215-546-3675, brandywineworkshop.com
Contrast and Compare
Jide Aje conveys emotion so effortlessly with color and line that the viewer is tempted to describe his canvases as tone poems of the heart; and if you add his cunning dash of symbolism here and there you have an equally satisfying exercise for tangents more cerebral. Abstract Ephemera I is Aje�s current exhibit at Cafe 1923, a show running almost tandem with the New Castings by Robert Bielat now on display at the Ellen Kayrod Gallery. Bielat�s remarkable balance between the �surface tension� of metal and the subtle nuances of an inner vision is the defining character of his works � and this character (like Aje�s) has a power all the more refreshing for its honesty of purpose. A pleasant intersection between two artists at two locations: Cafe 1923 is at 2287 Holbrook in Hamtown; Kayrod Gallery is within Hannan House at 4750 Woodward.
‘jide Aje is a Hamtramck based artist whose work reflects a deep interest in African culture, and a constant experimentation with new creative processes. Educated in Nigeria and the US, Aje has a degree in Art from the University of Ife, where his tutors were influenced by the “Zaria Rebels” - the pioneering group of artists who questioned the European syllabus at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria around the time of Nigerian independence. (late 50’s to early 60’s)
Reflecting the “natural synthesis” philosophy from Zaria, Aje’s own work draws its content primarily, but not exclusively, from Yoruba traditional sources, and derives from a background that contrasts rural and urban, traditional and modern, African and Western. Constantly experimenting with new materials and processes, and always seeking out new experiences and knowledge, his work is ever evolving, yet instantly recognizable. In this show he will present new mixed media pieces along with earlier works.
alt textA painting by ‘jide Aje
alt textA closeup of a small work by ‘jide Aje
Another artist that makes due with whatever materials he can find is ‘jide Aje. Steve Panton let me into his gallery/living space on 2739 Edwin and we chatted about ‘jide’s work and our views of the Detroit art scene. I enjoyed seeing characters that I thought were the same until Steve pointed out that actually each symbol changes ever so slightly when you look at their structures. From ‘jide’s artist statement, “My work is inspired by a wide variety of themes and influences. I use African iconography, especially West African decorative motifs as the jumping off point. Sometimes I incorporate traditional color schemes as well. Working from the viewpoint that culture is dynamic, I attempt to rework the symbols to fit a modern context.” His command of culture is inspiring and is a good reminder of how ‘culture’ or ‘identity’ as we define it is constantly in flux. Another influences that comes to my mind when looking at his work is the fiber artist Sheila Palmer. She once told me that ‘jide praised her for teaching him more from her than he felt he had even learned in school. I feel like I can see the structural workings of a quilter in his paintings, consciously making a specific number of dots or divisions, a specific number of knots (notice the picture on the left). So congrats to ‘jide, the space really does his work justice and he’s sold quite a few pieces so far. It boggles the mind that his studio space is as cramped as it was when I last visited.
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