For as long as we can remember, the ratio of male to female artists in Nigeria has been largely imbalanced, favouring the men. Over the years, it’s been recognized that a disproportionately low number of women participate in exhibitions and workshops than their male counterparts in the country’s arts community. It’s been so unbalanced that an artist’s role has almost become synonymous with masculinity, as it’s been practically impossible to visualize a woman at the mention of the word. In art schools, for instance, men form the majority of faculty members – a key signifier of the gender inequality in the art sector.
This should not be the case. Women in art deserve to have their talent and work recognized, amplified and appreciated. They deserve to be at the forefront of artistic discussions too, and not left in the shadows as afterthoughts, as they’ve usually been. This is the entire premise behind the recently concluded all-female exhibition, The Noire Exhibition. Pieced together by Zida Kalu, a 22-year-old, emerging female artist, The Noire Exhibition was a two-day art exhibition held to showcase the ingenuity of Black women in visual art.
A self-taught digital artist, Zida had been making art on her own since 2018, often turning to the world wide web to share her work. Two years in the game, and she soon noticed the gaping hole in the art community: the evident lack of varying platforms for female artists to be seen and heard. She decided to take it upon herself to make a difference. Naturally, Zida couldn’t do this alone, so she reached out to five other female artists whose works she admired: Pamela Omagbitse, Blossom Oyeyipo, Donna Duke, Fiyin Koko, and Nneoma Ndukwe. Hence, the birth of The Noire Exhibition, an exhibition — and resulting community — founded by Nigerian women to celebrate the visual journeys of Black female artists.
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The exhibition was held at Wéré House mid-December 2020 (a virtual exhibition was also available online for those who couldn’t attend) and featured spectacular works from each artist; all created using various media. Looking through all the pieces on display for both days, it’s clear these women are all uniquely gifted. Blossom exhibited her “Struggling Artist” series, an ode to emerging artists like herself; Pamela showcased works like “Beautiful Chaos”, a product of a random day of messing around with Adobe Tools on her laptop; Donna’s colourful works like “Ojongo” and “Pragma” tell tales of love & hope in the face of adversity; Zida’s “Sweet September” showcase the beauty in abstractness; Fiyin expressed feminine resilience through works like “Abefe” & “Ore” and Nneoma’s “Kaizen & Shoshin” highlight her strong sense of expression.
Women who venture into art often face several challenges ranging from lack of visibility to lack of community. With The Noire Exhibition, these six young women aimed to tackle both. For many young female artists, especially on the emerging spectrum of things, visibility is a major issue, as many may rely on co-signs from industry “gatekeepers” to give them a leg-up. With The Noire Exhibition, these six cut out the middleman, creating a platform to spotlight themselves. “[The purpose behind the exhibition] was encouraging female representation in the artistic space. All perspectives matter and are valid. For me in particular, it’s the opportunity of visibility,” Donna shares with FEMME MAG. “[We wanted to] create a platform for ourselves as women to be heard, as there are barely any forums where female artists are welcome in its entirety,” Blossom additionally explains. With barely any platforms in place for women in art, the importance of a showcase like this one cannot be understated.
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If there’s ever a year that showed us the importance of community, it’s 2020. The yearlong pandemic-induced isolation forced us to appreciate the existence of communities, both digitally and with those we were privileged to be near. Likewise, as a creative, it’s essential to find your tribe of like-minded people, a challenge Pamela admits she’s often faced. In the process of creating The Noire Exhibition, these women built a community of Black female artists within themselves, which could expand further in the future. “Being a creative is incredibly lonely,” Blossom admits, “and it helps to know you’re not the only one.” For women in art, relationships with other women you can call for advice or comfortably collaborate with are needed, and that’s why communities are essential. This is a sentiment Fiyin shares with FEMME MAG, explaining that such communities in Nigeria are vital for female artists to “encourage creative growth within ourselves and build stronger art platforms in the future.”
For Donna, however, while it’s imperative to foster amicable relationships with female artists that support each other and their passions, such communities don’t necessarily have to consist of like-minded people. “I think it’s equally as important to have [communities of] females in general, not necessarily like-minded,” she explains. “All perspectives matter in a space like ours because that’s what shapes the art produced. The context of the different work created will shed greater meaning if it’s not coming from the same perspective, for future generations looking to gain a greater understanding of Nigeria through a woman’s eyes.” Looking at the six women behind the exhibition, you’d notice the diversity Donna speaks of. Each artist operates with a different medium of expression, ranging from digital design to oil paint and metal leaf. They’re all also in different stages in their various art journeys: Pamela only began experimenting with art due to isolation from the lockdowns, while Fiyin, Donna, and Blossom have been making art from the womb. Having such diverse backgrounds within a community provides a cumulation of different learning experiences that will throw fresh perspectives into the mix.
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So moving forward, what can we expect in the future for women in art in Nigeria? More visibility, for one. Thanks to the internet, women now have more reach and can push their work as far as possible and receive recognition without people considering their gender. However, more platforms to spotlight their work are definitely needed. Currently, African Artists’ Foundation operates an initiative called Female Artists’ Platform. This annual initiative focuses on the under-represented sector of women in Nigerian society and promotes art as a vehicle for women. Polartics, an online art gallery founded by Oyinkan Dada (a young Nigerian woman) is a platform that also pushes and creates spaces for emerging young African artists – many of them women. But it shouldn’t stop there. More women-focused platforms and forums need to be established, and more communities need to be fostered.
As women, we’re often left to scramble for the one seat at the boys’ table, so it’s about time we got our own damn table. If for nothing else, for the next generation of young female artists to avoid having the same struggles the generations before them did — a sentiment Fiyin explains perfectly: “[We need to] create communities so we can further inspire younger girls to realise that there is nothing they can’t achieve in the art field, even in a male-dominated world.”
