Osaretin Ighile: New Sculpture

Skoto Gallery presents an exhibition of recent sculpture by the Nigerian-born sculptor Osaretin Ighile. This is his second solo show at the gallery. Osaretin Ighile’s work is informed by a sophisticated discourse on traditional philosophical concepts, a deep understanding of the aesthetic and cultural character of the African continent as well as an invigorating inclination and facility with various materials and methods. By inventively handling his material within a formalist sculptural framework combined with a highly developed experimental approach to making art, he creates work that is unorthodox, persistently innovative and encourages us to probe into common elements of the human experience. His work seeks to find an alternative aesthetics and discursive frame work that mines the microcosm of his culture for symbols that can be universally understood. He adheres to his own intuitive program of freely improvised compositions and draws on an inimitable way of perceiving his environment that reveals acute awareness of harmony, dissonance and the complications of urban living through the subjective lens of his experience. His belief that the spiritual and physical selves are inseparable is reflected in this exhibition’s series of life-size open form sculpture made with natural rope and infused with a boundless energy that extends the range of sculpture as expressive poetry. He is aware of texture, color as well as the tactile quality of his material which he combines with a strong ability to draw in space to create forms which balances volume, space and material in a way that plays with the viewer’s sense of interior and exterior. The artist will be present at the reception on Thursday, March 13th, 6-8pm. Osaretin Ighile was born 1965 in Benin City, Nigeria. He studied sculpture, painting and performance at Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi (1987), and at the University of Benin (1990), in Nigeria before leaving for the US in early 1990s. He obtained his MFA (Sculpture) at Queens College, New York in 2011. Exhibitions include Treasure House, Lagos, 1986; The Burden of an Era, NYC, 2005, Dakar Biennial, Dakar, Senegal, 2008; Africa Now, World Bank, Washington DC, 2009. He is in several private and public collections in the US and abroad including Blachere Foundation, Apt, France, Treasure House, Lagos; French Embassy, Lagos, Nigeria. www.skotogallery.com