I just completed this painting
as a tribute to
The Birth of a Beautiful Divinity, Ajé
Ajé (The Divinity of Profit, Prosperity and Wealth)
65” x 77”
2020
is Searching For Me).
I fling open the gates of my heart
visit me, Aje, visit me.
Can you see her?
do you see her eyes,
Aje’s limitless eyes of endless gifts,
searching for your heart?
ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY 1982 (Part Thirty-seven) “You are quite ugly too,” Mary said without a pause. “I knew you had too much palm wine today.”
“You are angry?” I asked.
“No,” she responded. “Did I sound angry? If so, I apologize.”
“I was only trying to let you understand a simple fact of life,” I explained. “Because you were unable to sexually arouse Joshua does not imply that Gina would also be unable to sexually arouse him.”
PARABLE OF IJAPA and CHILD
There is an old Yoruba proverb that says “The child insisting that his mother must not sleep will also not get any sleep.” (Ọmọ tó ní ìyá òun ò ní í sùn kò ní fojú ba oorun).
Women who nurse babies know the challenge of getting enough sleep while a baby is still unable to understand the difference between night and day. The baby keeps waking up to feed, cry, poo and pee.
The mother must attend to all the needs of the baby during the night. Typically, for the mother, therefore, it is a long, wearying night.
The poor mother gets up in the morning having caught almost no sleep, exhausted and drained physically and emotionally.
Yet she must face another day of sleeplessness and ceaseless labor until the baby grows up.
Now think of the story of Ijapa.
I teach now by Zoom.
It feels weird to sit in the studio, talking to a screen, wondering if you are not crazy.
The computer tells me the names of everybody logged into the class, listening and watching me.
But who else is with them, also watching and listening? How far will the recording of the session travel?
When I became the Curator of African art in 1999 for a major art museum in the United States, the irony was not lost on me.How do you steal, loot, confiscate or pillage something, display the stolen or contraband goods publicly in your house, and hire the owner of the objects as the guard for the contraband or stolen goods?
In 1999, I boarded a plane from New York to Syracuse. It was in December, and the weather was freezing cold. I was happy that the weather forecast indicated it was not going to snow, though I knew that the temperature in Syracuse was going to be well below zero, even colder than the weather in New York where I boarded the plane.
I was going to the University of Syracuse for a job interview. The advertised job was going to almost double my salary, if I got it.
I was 19 years old in 1975 and an undergraduate studying painting at the University of Ife when my friend, Augusta Akusu-Ossai, took this picture of me.
The attire I’m wearing in the picture is typical of what I always wore in those days: a long adire (batik) top that I designed and sewed myself, and the baggy pants of that era.