Transcient Encounters

Adetola Festus Wewe is a contemporary Nigerian painter born in Shabomi, Okitipupa region of Ondo state in 1959. He graduated from the Ife Art School of the University of Ife, Ile-Ife with a BA in Fine Arts, majoring in painting in 1983. He also obtained a MA in African Visual Arts from the University of Ibadan in 1986. Tola was one of the leading advocates of the artistic philosophy referred to as “Onaism” which became a famous symbol synonymous with the Ife Art School and its identity. Ona is a Yoruba word meaning art, design and decoration. It represents the beautification of things such as walls, wood, cloth, human bodies etc by the Yoruba people. Thus Onaism was the movement which sought to promote the formal or thematic concept of art rooted in the creative projection of Yoruba designs, forms and philosophies in the contemporary era. Graduates of the Ife Art School who founded and were associated with this philosophy are called the “Ona Artists”.

On Transient Encounters, Tola Wewe fuses shapes, lines and space to form figures and patterns. Five faces can be noticed amidst the shapes and patterns, with long necks that appear ornamented. Hues of yellow, red, brown and black are used for the aesthetic effects. The painting is an abstract representation of African women.