Footnotes

Exhibited
Goethe Institute Lagos, Uche Okeke, 60th Birthday Anniversary, Retrospective Exhibition, (1993). 32.

Literature
Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, Uche Okeke, 60th Birthday Anniversary, Retrospective Exhibition, Goethe Institute Lagos, (1993), p. 33. (illustrated)

Though possessing human-like qualities, the features of the present figurative subject are so curved that they become distorted. The linear fluidity of Uli contributes to the richness of the present work. While holding an aesthetic purpose within the work, the Uli depiction is also used in the artist's response to the ideology of this folklore synthesising with artistic expression deriving from the Negritude ideology. The philosophical understanding of Natural Synthesis was enriched particularly by the Igbo indigenous art traditions, namely with Uli motifs.

This concept of Natural Synthesis came to fruition during Okeke's time studying at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology from 1957-1961, during which he and his fellow students formed the Zaria Art Society. This society aimed to maintain the value of local tradition within modern art and not diminish it under colonial intervention. Furthermore, while championing their heritage, it was also key to the ideological concept of the society that they embrace the expressive direction of contemporary art, therefore fusing the old with the new to create culturally informed work. They were establishing traditional art as repackaged and accepting of change.

The importance of Uche Okeke lies in his recognition of the possibilities of Uli as a design resource for enriching modern art and, together with Nigeria's other innovators, of providing us with real "20th Century African Art" different from the travesties now and again foisted on a gullible world as the "true form of 20th century creativity in Africa," (Frank Aig-Imoukhuede in the Foreword of the exhibition catalogue: Uche Okeke, 60th Birthday Anniversary, Retrospective Exhibition, Goethe Institute Lagos, 1993).

Bibliography
Onwuakpa, S. I. & Chukueggu C.C., 'Natural Synthesis and Contemporary Nigerian Visual Arts: An Exposition of Uche Okeke's Works', African Research Review: An International Multi-disciplinary Journal, Ethiopia, Vol. 10(4), Serial No. 43, September 2016