Sam Ovraiti is an award-winning artist, teacher, administrator and Director of the Harmattan Workshop, promoted by renowned artist, Professor Bruce Onobrakpeya.
In this interview with Sylvester Asoya, he speaks on what to expect in this year’s edition of the Harmattan Workshop, his work, the philosophy behind the yearly art event, among others.
In a fortnight, the 23rd edition of the Harmattan Workshop, one of Nigeria’s most anticipated art workshops will take place. What exactly is your role at this important art clinic?
I am the director. As a director, I direct the workshop from organisational and administrative levels. As you already know, Bruce Onobrakpeya Foundation, BOF, organises the Harmattan Workshop but I am the director. I only work for BOF to run the Harmattan Workshop. I sit to direct. This year, our theme is “Creating art on the other side of certainty”. We are working on the uncertainties confronting the world because of the challenge and reality of COVID-19 which is a major global pandemic. Even in this era of uncertainty, life goes on. People are born, and people also die. People do go to work, market and farm, and creativity also comes alive everywhere. We are therefore looking at how uncertainty has affected the visual art sector and also taking a direct look at art through the opposite side of certainties.
If I may ask, why are you concerned with the opposite side of certainties?
We are concerned because in all the problems we have had in Nigeria, we have always been certain until COVID arrived. Now, nobody knows whether there will be church service next Sunday or whether Mid-week prayer meeting will hold. We are also not sure when schools will re-open, whether planes will fly over our skies or not, whether borders will open or not and so on. Without warning, uncertainty has become one of the key factors of decision making in both government and individual lives across the world. That is why we are looking at the other side of certainty which essentially is uncertainty. I personally don’t dwell on negative things. I look at the flip sides all the time. If there is good, there could be a flip side as well to have a balanced view. We are not looking at our art from the point of view that the uncertainty has brought down our lives or economies. We are looking at how much we can turn it around for the goodness it would provide the society and by extension, the world at large.
So, what are the negative results that we have seen in the past one year or so? Now, what are the flip sides?
For me, the lockdown kept me in my studio. It also helped me to see the other side of life. I must say also that this uncertainty heightened my creativity because the artist is naturally locked down every time in his studio. But who is even afraid of being locked down? I know that Bill Gates was once asked by his anxious mother why he was always at the basement. He responded, saying: “I am thinking, don’t you think?” Edison couldn’t have been attending parties and gallivanting when he was making the 900 mistakes before the success that gave light to the world. During World War II when other artists were relocating to the US and moving around, Picasso, the greatest and most significant artist of the 20th Century locked himself down in his studio, thinking and creating Cubism, an art form that changed the face of art history forever. So, as some people sat idly at home, grumbling that there was no movement, that negative part and uncertainty became a blessing to other people whose aim was to come out with new forms of creativity in visual art. While there was no movement to buy art supplies to create Art the usual way, the creative artist was looking at what was left in his immediate environment, to create new forms. At some point, we could use anything to create art because that was what was available. That is doing the impossible with the available which is also equal to getting out of order to create a new order. After all, the basic aim of the visual artist is to create art and not necessarily to make art and sell for the purpose of making money.
Are you saying that an artist does not need money?
Of course, an artist needs money but that is not the primary focus. Naturally, money follows any creative endeavour that renders service or solves a problem. Money has always been a consequence of heightened creativity put to use to solve problems in a generation.
What are your other roles as a director and how do you cope with the challenges you face on a daily basis during this workshop?
After working with an enigma like Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya since 1992 when I encountered him closely, there are countless expectations and challenges, but the tasks are surmountable once you are dedicated and focused. For instance, I embedded the principle of proper planning from him; I make sure I plan ahead. I make sure I select the facilitators and see to the daily management of the workshop. You can imagine a place with about 100 artists with different background, character, experience and behaviour, converging on one spot for two weeks. That should give you an idea of the work the director must put in place for sanity and purpose to reign.
What has been your experience so far?
Great! This is going to be the 23rd Harmattan Workshop and I only missed two episodes. The first one was because I was still doing my Master’s Degree programme. The other was because I was abroad at the time. But I actually became a substantial director seven years ago; I didn’t know I was going to stay this long as a director. I have learnt how to conceive projects and execute them. I have also sharpened my skills in terms of managing people. My intellect has also grown as my presence at the nightly evening seminar sessions have made me see things from a wide range of views. Now, I make decisions better. Not forgetting my art have gone Liberal and more purposeful. I cannot repeat enough that I have also come to learn a lot from the wealth of experience of Professor Bruce Onobrakpeya whom I have worked closely with. Truly, greatness is not a fluke; Bruce has shown that to me.
Give us an idea of what the Harmattan Workshop looks like at Agbarha-Otor?
Let me start with the structure (building) of the Harmattan Workshop; it is breath-taking. It was conceived to be Bruce Onobrakpeya’s country home until he decided to use it as workshop venue for the Harmattan Workshop. It is a three storey building, designed by Demas Nwoko, a top architect who is also a sculptor and school mate of Onobrakpeya at ABU. Nwoko is a veteran designer, architect and consummate artist. I wish to add that this venue has accommodation for everyone. The place can accommodate more than a hundred people conveniently, that is why all the participants are accommodated at the venue.
In Agbarha-Otor, Bruce and the Harmattan Workshop is recognized as one of the major contributors to the growth of a town that also produced the great Ibru Family. Onobrakpeya is revered for his contributions to the town and for his support for young people. Youths of this community receive scholarships from Dr Bruce to attend the workshop. Agbarha-Otor is now a place known for young people who use their hands and brains to create jobs for themselves. Let me also state that the workshop has different sections ranging from painting, print making, photography and textile design to stone carving, wood work, computer, ceramics and weaving. All these are areas where trainings are offered by professionals who come in to work, interact, train and teach in an informal setting. For maximum effect, the day is broken into two: morning and night. During the morning hours, artists are based in their studios creating their art works while the evening session hosts seminars, lectures, movies and more. In a nutshell, it is a balanced and complete form of education given to excited participants within those two weeks. Harmattan Workshop also offers people, whether educated or not, the opportunity for a hands-on and two weeks on-the-spot work on specialised areas in art. So, the meeting allows professors to come and work with freshers. This workshop is a leveller where anybody can work with anybody and where anybody can also teach anybody. It is an experimental place where the issue of good or bad depends on the creator. We believe that art is essentially a result of an endeavour that can remain, be modified or even be jettisoned. At the end of the workshop, we certify the participants but the certificates are given only to those who are present in class for at least, 75 per cent of the time. So, attendance is very important.
As an art teacher, how can our universities, polytechnics and colleges benefit from this Harmattan Workshop?
They are already benefitting and the workshop also benefits. We don’t pride ourselves as a people who only give, we also receive. As you know, papers are delivered every day, and as we learn from experts, we benefit too. In a way, the experts also profit from our skills and for the fact that we provide the platforms for experimentation. And those who are running higher degree programmes in universities come to meet Bruce who teaches and gives answers to baffling questions, directly from the source. At the workshop, we break the rules but we are also conscious of the fact that to break the rules, you must know the rules.
This workshop opens the creative space for all, irrespective of age, education or ideology. What is your impression of Bruce Onobrakpeya, the catalyst who made it possible?
“A candle does not get diminished by lighting another candle;” in fact there will be more light at the end of the day. Bruce is a rare gift and we thank God for his generosity. Do you know that not even one artist of his era is as versatile? He is a painter, sculptor and print maker. He is also very generous, somebody who spends his money whether there is sponsorship or not. Let me tell you something, Onobrakpeya also learns from this workshop. You teach to learn, and that is his philosophy. Every teacher is a learner. If you don’t give, you don’t get. His charity brings him in touch with other artists who affect him positively with results from the yearly Harmattan Workshop. Therefore, this art gathering is not for those who know it all; it is a place for revelations and Onobrakpeya believes he has been blessed by it.
Could you talk about your art?
I must tell you that I try not to discuss my art because the fish is the last to know that it is inside water until it is out of water. Everyone knows that the fish is in water but it is only when the fish is out of water that it knows. So, many artists, including my humble self, do not see themselves very well because we are not a body with a spirit. We are a spirit with a body. Therefore, if I want to discuss my art, I will discuss it in the sense of spirit. The truth is that what I see is not what you see. We depend on people who can see us to tell us who we are. That is why some journalists refer to Ovraiti as Nigeria’s most expressive colourist. I didn’t know this, what I only see inside me is the need to get better. That is why the press forms us. The Nigerian media gave me titles like: ‘the most expressive water colourist in Nigeria’, ‘the colour master’, ‘the artist whose works exude peace in the home or office’ and others. These are all their creations and it has stuck. For me, I started art as any other artist. I went to school, I read Art to Master’s degree level but at some point, I discovered that formal presentations were becoming obsolete in my own consciousness. So, I decided to dematerialise the elements in my pictures. I decided to break them down to essence by distortion, abstraction, amplification and re-present them in a format that will be traced to me. My art therefore, changed from school-trained to become the result of personal preferences made by me. At one time, I started realising that everything is colour. When we talk light and dark, we are actually talking about colour and light, that some colours are light while others are dark. Therefore, elements do not have colour in themselves. The colours they reveal, is consequent upon the amount of light they are exposed to and the kinds of colour they are connected with.
You are a product of the Auchi Art School. Why is Auchi different from other art schools?
Auchi School is different because we speak the truth; we are a school of truth. We are also a very contemporary school that builds the future from the future and not from the past. Many people say the future is here. What the future is going to be is already here, it is not in the past. We record our time and we don’t go back studying what is already written that is obsolete. So, in Auchi, we believe that education is a present tense thing. The artist of Auchi works with our time, not with the past. We don’t go back to work with the motif created by the past. We believe in what we can do now for posterity. And at this Auchi School where I taught for many years, colour is the primary intent of painting. The intention of painting is colour. That is why when we assess our students, we want to know how they have used colour.