Prof. Bruce Onobrakpeya is one of Africa’s most gifted and inspiring experimental artists. To know and respect him is to admire his work, as well as appreciate the immense positive influence he has had on a whole generation of artists, who have been reinvigorated and strengthened by his Harmattan Workshops. The quintessential teacher at heart, his life work has been to inspire others to discover and nurture the “artist child” within them.
The Harmattan Workshop is the brain child of Onobrakpeya, and was started in 1998 when he decided to launch an informal training initiative for artists. He started the Harmattan Workshop in his hometown, Agbarah-Ottor, Delta State in 1998, and has since organized two workshops a year at which over 1300 leading and emerging Nigerian and international artists have been trained in many exciting art forms including painting, sculpture, metal, stone, jewelry, textile and mixed media
This exhibition showcases 30 important artworks highlighting Onobrakpeya’s rich artistic career spanning over 50 years, along with over 200 paintings, sculptures, ceramics and mixed media works created by 124 Nigerian and international artists who have attended Harmattan Workshops in Agbarah-Ottor, Delta State, since 1998.
