Asidere does more drawings and scribbles than he cares to remember. The richer his canvases become in terms of multiplicity of lines and colour, the wider communication lines open up.
Duke Asidere is a Nigerian contemporary artist who uses his art to engage with contemporary African politics. Through visual metaphors, Asidere comments on the everyday complexities of life from political upheavals and cultural struggles within his community; to social and psychological deficiencies within his community.
Asidere’s broad oeuvre ranges from lifeless, limbless figures and faces of hybrid beings, to densely populated urban landscapes, accentuated with thick strokes of vivid colour. He has recently returned to his use of oil paints, which he applies with a range of thick hard-edged brushes allowing for figurative subject matter to be balanced with abstract qualities.
With this display of 20 paintings, the exhibition aims to transcend accepted conceptions of figuration & abstraction, where the cohesion & control of colour boldly lives beyond the canvas.
Asidere studied Fine Art at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and graduated with a first class in Painting in 1988. He also earned a Masters in Fine Art from the same institution in 1990.
