Footnotes

• "A number of Onobrakpeya's prints seek to record a traditional way of life in the Niger Delta, even as it is encroached upon by manners and goods from outside. In a work like Edido, for example, he quite deliberately sets out to portray one complete process in the social and economic life of a village, as an onlooker might see it. There is a slight tilt of perspective to the composition, so that the observer seems to be in the river, looking up the bank into the settlement. But an accurate presentation is not the primary goal of this print, which is organized more around its theme, the energy in daily cooperative effort carried on in harmony with the natural environment. Water swirls around the women washing in the foreground, while the task of the men on the bank requires coordination." (Lawrence, 1978)
  
  "Edido is the chorus to a working song which Urhobo farmers sing while they thresh boiled palm nuts in a large wooden trough called Oko. The picture is based on the memory of life in Oke-Eruvbi, a fertile river valley dotted with many small villages not too far away from the ancient city of Benin." (Onobrakpeya, 1978)
  
  BIBLIOGRAPHY:
  W. Lawrence, 'Bruce Onobrakpeya: The Spirit in Ascent' in R. Barde Nigeria's Master Printmaker (Toronto, 1978)
  B. Onobrakpeya, Notes and Comments on 46 Prints (August 1974-February 1978) (Lagos, 1978)

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Category: Fine Art / Contemporary Art

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