Paying homage to ‘The Igbo Landing’, the mass suicide in 1803 by captive Igbo people who took control of the slave ship they were on, and refused to submit to slavery in Georgia, United States; Gerald Chukwuma’s new body of work, Water Carried Us Here, Water Will Carry Us Away, is currently showing at O’DA Art Gallery. The exhibition, which opened on Saturday, March 8, will run till April 5, 2025.

Chukwuma interrogates this historic event through portraiture and watercolour abstraction in The Wrinkle and Index series respectively. The Wrinkle Series are a set of works on canvas paper made using a multilayered close drip method. They are inspired by Chukwuma’s travels through southeastern Nigeria during which he collected oral accounts from the descendant community of “The Igbo Landing” in Southeastern Nigeria.

Drawing from these accounts, Chukwuma derives a conceptual approach to connecting currents between seemingly distant continents, which are in essence, entwined through our shared history, heritage and tales of survival.

Working as both a lament and a celebration of the passage of time, the series is an interrogation of archival omissions and its impact on our recollection of our history. The density of contour and lines, which define these paintings, play a significant role in conveying the visual rhythm in the composition; highlighting the tension between inner emotions and the external world.


https://guardian.ng/art/water-carried-us-here-water-will-carry-us-away-at-oda-art/