"This is not just a shift from history to contemporary art. Instead, different histories are active at the same time in the water metaphor. The bodies of those lost in the slave trade, today’s migrants, and Idu’s women and children are not the same, but each has a place in an ongoing story of movement, displacement, vulnerability, and the search for freedom. Idu’s figures drift through both water and time. The curatorial text says they move “between generations and places,” with water as a space for re-imagining history. Here, memory is not just looking back. It shapes how we see the present and imagine the future",
Frank A.O Ugiomoh; PhD, Retired Professor of History of Art and Theory, University of Port Harcourt.
Chika Idu extends his exploration of submerged figures suspended within clear blue waters. The figures drift with intention, exploring a pristine and pure underwater world of wonder and harmony. The water is thick with painterly movement through layered palette-knife gestures. These experimental impressions mimic the shifting currents and refraction of light beneath the water's surface.
Pure Water introduces a critical and ironic reference to Idu’s aspiration for a pristine, balanced world, while the term also refers to the plastic “pure water” drinking sachets, used to quench the thirst of millions of Nigerians within heavily populated and polluted city centers. These water sachets clog up the drains and waterways, becoming an environmental hazard which affect people’s quality of life. In Pure Water, Idu’s figures and portraits claim liberality and innocence, drifting towards freedom despite all odds. Through the fluidity of their light speckled under-water reverie, Idu creates scenes of youthful innocence, rendering figures that have the capacity for freedom and adventure, despite life’s uncertain currents.
A short film by SMO Contemporary Art accompanies the exhibition, offering insight into Idu’s ideas, process and practice.
