Tracing Forms: The Art of Making is an exhibition that foregrounds the diverse techniques Nigerian artists employ in the making of contemporary art. Rather than grouping works by theme, period, or subject matter, the exhibition organizes them by methods of production, demonstrating that technique is not merely a tool of expression but a form of knowledge, cultural memory, and innovation.
Across Nigeria, artistic production exists within multiple lineages, guild-based craft systems, studio-based academic techniques, experimental material practices, and post-digital image-making. Together, they reveal a rich ecosystem of workshops, foundries, ceramics studios, digital labs, and environmental interventions. This exhibition shifts attention from what artworks represent to how they are made, enabling audiences to encounter the processes, materials, and technical decisions that shape artistic outcomes.
The exhibition is structured into four technique clusters forming four major sections:
- Material & Gesture: impasto painting, palette-knife application, and realist naturalism, exploring the physicality of pigment and the discipline of observation.
- Matter & Transformation: woodcarving, bronze casting, and ceramics, emphasizing how materials are altered through carving, molten metal, and fire.
- Environmental & Spatial Practice: assemblage, found objects, and ecological installation that engage scarcity, waste, and environmental realities in Nigerian cities.
- Digital & Lens-Based Practice: photography, video, and digital composition that extend artistic production into virtual and computational spaces.
These clusters allow intergenerational dialogue between artists who work with different media but share a commitment to material experimentation and technical rigor. Traditional bronze casting and carving sit alongside contemporary ceramics and post-digital imaging, showing that Nigerian art is anchored in both ancestral technologies and emerging digital methods. As a university museum, the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art offers a context in which technique can also be understood as learning.
By highlighting material and method, the exhibition Aims to show the cultural imagination that drives artistic production in Nigeria. Wood and bronze speak to lineage and durability; clay reflects experimentation and design; waste materials reveal inventive responses to urban scarcity; digital imagery signals the expansion of Nigerian art into global Avante-garde mediums. Ultimately, Tracing Forms proposes that technique is a vital lens for understanding Nigerian art. Through the interplay of materials, tools, and processes, the exhibition makes visible the knowledge, adaptation, and creative intelligence that shape artistic practice from past to present.
Curated by Udeh Charles Nwabundo.