BLAH BLAH BLUR Art Exhibition by Jamiu Kola Agboke

Agboke is a multi-disciplinary artist, and his practice is a continuous inquiry into his body’s locality in space through observational painting and drawing, photography and installation. He uses his body in conjunction with various objects and subjects and explores the configuration and complexity of his identity.

Agboke describes his installation and photography as a form of performative exorcism. Momentarily dislodging certain beliefs and preconceived ideas, these ideas collide, suspended in some emotional hyperspace, a stillness ensues, giving rise to a new beginning and a fresh encounter. The work is refined through crudeness. Everything comes together stroke by stroke, moment to moment, mummified in stillness and articulated through attention.

‘’There’s a refreshing silence and dialogue to be found in and between my paintings. My engagement with these sub/objects arise by chance. I think I’m often seeking that element of silence, to be free of the noise of expectation. So, I observe, subdue, reconfigure and displace these things in relation to the atmosphere of the time and place the work’s being conceived. It is an endeavour to ground myself in the cracks of this groundless catatonic free fall of the globalisation.

It’s a refusal to reside in a state of social stasis, which negates the false sense of security in individualism. The works that arise have a Dionysian vague/irrational relationship to both myself and the viewer. In another sense, they are close and visceral in their handling of texture, colour & light. It’s an attempt to unearth new possibilities, modalities, perspectives and to confront and investigate things that I can’t quite verbalise.’’