TOLA Wewe is a seasoned artist, a successful farmer and a leading
politician. He was a Commissioner for Culture and Tourism in Ondo State.
He was born in 1950 at Shabomi, Ese Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State. He
graduated from the University of Ife, Osun State, in 1983 with a
specialised degree in Painting. He was once lecturer at the Adeyemi Collage of Education, Ondo State, he worked with the Daily Times as cartoonists, before he went into full time art practice. He has done over 60
exhibitions in different parts of the world and has won several competitive
awards. Wewe in an exclusive interview with Arts and Culture Place shares his life story as a politician, artist and a
farmer.
Who
is Tola Wewe when he is not an artist?
I am I farmer and a politician. I do part time
politics and I am also a farmer. I have 20 fish ponds. I have oil palm plantation,
it covers over fifty hectares of land. If I am not painting or drawing, I go to
the farm and produce some palm oil and fish. Another aspect of my life is
politics. Although I did not go into
politics formally or intentionally, I crept into it. Olusegun Mimiko, the
Governor of Ondo State, used to be my good friend. In those days we discussed
politics, even when we hanged out to drink. Incidentally, Mimiko became
governor, he appointed me as his commissioner. This drew me into politics and
since then I have been into politics. And as an artist too, I think it’s our
primary concern to comment on socio-political issues in our country. Beyond these, I socialise; I drink with
friends in the evening and attend parties.
Do
you personally take care of the farm or you have people who handle it for you?
I have people who work for me. My main attraction
was trying to create job for people and is not just saying verbally. The
easiest way of creating job in Nigeria is farming. And if you have the land or
can buy the land, employ people and produce. I produce some kegs of oil frequently
and the people I employ do this work. I make little profit but these people are
fully engaged.
Would
you say growing up in the village influenced you to consider farming even though
you are a successful artist?
It must be so; my father was also a farmer. In my
community where I grew up, my father had the biggest farm. Up till date the
farm is still there and his children are still sharing the money from his farm
every year. He has a huge oil plantation. My father’s experience was my
inspiration too. And with the present
day situation, I think arming it a thing to go into.
Growing
up as a child, what was life like for you?
Life was fun for me. I grew up in a village called Shabomi
Village in Okitipupa Local Government Area in Ondo State. It is a riverine area. My people were
amphibious; we walk on land then water. We were farmers and fisher men. I grew up in this little village and there
was a lot of adventure for me as a kid growing up there. Sometimes we go into the forest to search for
food with our catapult to hunt for birds. All these were the adventures that I
enjoyed as a growing child. I schooled in the village and did a lot of sports. I
was a footballer too; I enjoyed my childhood and my childhood was adventurous.
What
where the challenges you encountered when you chose to become an artist?
I don’t think I encountered any major challenge
because I started art as a kid. Let me
take you through. My father had many children; we are close to 30 and at every
stage we have some peers among the children. We were about five who were about
the same age growing up in the same house. And in those days, we act drama with
slices of bread my father usually buy whenever he travelled. We created holes
in the bread to make it look like a camera. The camera we had in those days is
not like what we have in the present day. When the photographers visited,
everybody would announce to each other that the photographer was around and we
get ready to take photograph. Then you don’t just take action photo, you sit
down, you take your time to dress and arrange yourself before your photo is
taken. We were always imitating that. I want to take your photograph and when I
take your photograph, I go to the dark to draw and when I go there I draw your
photo. I was doing this constantly as a kid and I remember that most of the
time I would get a psychological remembrance of the person I was trying. And most time people were able to identify
the people I drew.
I remember too that after the rain I used to draw on
the ground. My father’s house had a flat frontage. When the rain stops, the ground
would be easy to draw on and I would take a broomstick and be drawing. I was
always drawing prominent people in my community, though the drawings were more
of caricature. The forms of their bodies would be exaggerated. This made people
to gather around me and laugh at my exaggerated caricature drawings. Many times
I got beaten in school for drawing on the back of my exercise books.
I was formally introduced to art as a subject when I
went to college. When I started doing fine art in school I became good at
it. My ambition to study art was not
shaken; I just knew I was going to study art.
Did
your parents oppose your choice of study?
No, but the only little advice I got against it was:
I was good at Mathematics and when said I was going to study fine art that
didn’t require Mathematics, my father
asked why I wanted to go and waste my Mathematics. But I was determined
to study fine art I was not really persuaded not to study fine art.
When
did you have your break through as an artist?
It was not easy to break through. When I was still a
student at the University of Ife, I started selling my art from my department.
I was producing art for survival in school. I was producing art for people on
campus. Some were…painting just satisfy
the buyer. As of then if you give me any amount to produce a painting for you,
I produce the painting that is worth your money. I was selling works to co-students. I sold my
work to some people in Lagos for 50 kobo. If you look at it, how much did I
spend to produce the work of 50 kobo? I didn’t spend 10 kobo, if I could do a
50 kobo work for an hour and I spent only 10 kobo, which was still profitable.
I was among those they called ‘Pee Peecians’ in
school, Private Practice people. The real thing is hard work, going extra mile
to do more. Even when others were
producing maybe six works for assignment, I could produce up to 40 works, so
hard work is very essential. The
challenge of art brokers making money on artist. Chike Nwagbogu of Nimbus Gallery
was my main broker. When I met Chike, he just opened a gallery and he was still
a student and I was a graduate and was practicing art. He was a determined art
broker, he would be going from studio to studio to collect artworks from
artists to sell; he was very promising. I met him and he was travelling to
London on a long vacation, and he wanted to travel with some works, and when he
wanted to travel has already exhausted his money before he met me, but he was
attracted to two of my works; I think I gave him one then. I got introduced to him by Felix Asare. This
was in the early 90’s before he opened a gallery. Chike came back and my work
was the only piece he was able to sell. He got encouraged to get more works
from me.
Because I came to Lagos then with an unusual style
of painting; my paintings to some people were scary. They were not used to it.
I was one of the pioneers of those who produced works that were having African
characters. And I started early. And when I brought these paintings with these
decorative patterns of deities, tattoos on the bodies of my works. So some
people were scared but the works got accepted by the expatriates. So Chike was emboldened
to get more from me. Every week we sold
about five paintings. And so every week, I was churning out works out and he
was selling them. But how much was I getting from the works from Chike? I was
getting N10, 000 naira from each work. I didn’t bother my head with how much
Chike was selling the works because N10, 000 was more than any salary I could
collect anywhere. I worked with the Daily Times and I was earning N2, 000 per
month. I worked with Signatures Gallery; I was its pioneer manager and I was
earning N4, 000 there. And when I started making N50, 000 in a week from five
works - he was selling the works and I was working really hard to produce more
than the five - at a stage I was able to move out of Lagos so that I could have
time to work because I was squatting with a friend somewhere in Akoka in Lagos.
It was not convenient for me to work there because of space. I relocated to
Ondo were I had enough space to do my work and came to Lagos on weekends with
the works.
It was when I wanted to have my first solo exhibition
with a Russian Cultural Centre in Ikoyi that was when I invited Chike. I told
him that I wanted to have an exhibition and I asked him how much he was selling
the works he was collecting from me, in order for me not to sell below or above
the price he had been selling the works.
What is your advice for younger artists who
are complaining that galleries are making more from their works than what they
(artists) receive?
I advice the younger ones not to bother themselves
with the amount someone is making from their works. The advantage is this: my art
was able to go into many homes. You should not really bother yourself about how
much the person is making from the work.
Before you knew it, my works were in several homes. Some people would want your work because the
MD of a certain bank has your work.
There was one ambassador of one European country to Nigeria; he bought
some paintings from me. The works were in my usual style. The man was so mad
about the paintings and there was a Nigerian collector who was his friend and
he went to the ambassador’s house and saw the painting, he was looking for me.
If I had not sold those paintings cheap, if I had given high price tags on them,
maybe my work wouldn’t have gotten to that place. After the show, I was then
gradually selling my works at the prices Chike was selling them. That is how to move on. They should produce
as much works as they can produce, as growing artists. If they can be producing
a lot works and if they can work hard, there is no way they won’t have breakthrough.
They shouldn’t bother about how much someone is making from their works.
What
is your advice for the younger artists who want to sell their works at the same
rate with the established masters, especially those who just graduated?
They should try it, if it works for them, good.
There is no good art and there is no bad art, and there is nothing like
experience in art. You can have a young artist that is very, very good; that is
extremely good, much better than the oldest of us all. Experience matters
because you have gone through a process. Art is a totally new profession, and
it is not like in law when…they are more respected. For example, Wizkid came
out and he is charging more than what Sunny Ade was charging. So art is a bit
different from other professions. There is no law that says they cannot sell higher
than the older artists. Everybody is free. What differentiates art from other
profession is freedom. But my only advice is that the artist must work very
hard to sustain the level of income he wants to make because this was the
approach I used. I was able to produce a lot of works that went into different
homes in Nigeria and abroad.
How
do you relax?
I relax mostly in the evenings. Every day I wake up
by 2: 00 am and go to the studio and sketch. That is when I begin my painting.
I do my composition around that time and when I do the composition and try to
do some work till about 5:00 am, then I go back to bed or read newspaper, or go
to the internet to do one thing or the other till the time I sleep of f. I go
back to the studio when I wake up around 9: 00 am. Then I work from this time
to 5:00 in the evening. I go out to hang out with friends after this time and
no one or work will disturb me. I then
go out to have a bottle of beer or two with friends. I do this every day.
(Copyright reserved)
No comments:
Post a Comment