We Are Reagents
work
Year
2026
About
Sometime in April 2020 , the Whole lockdown and covid scare got to me and I started seeing black as a color in my visions. Literally every time I feel like painting , the black color was getting in my view. I was surrounded at that time being mostly at home alone, with plants ( flowers ) in the house and I found myself relating with them like humans! I mean with more life about them than just plants. It was like they could talk back to me and share in the pains and stress I was feeling at that time.
And much like my art, I wanted to paint them and show my experience with them. And because I was seeing a lot of stuff in black at that time, I decided to paint these flowers all in the same black color surrounded with some colors. It’s like every living thing wanted to wear that black color to reflect what they’re going through. To show their feeling.
Then came the black lives matter and racial issues from the USA spreading like wild fire across the world and throwing me back into that dungeon of certain realities about who I am as a black man in the world. The struggle even as a black man on the African continent. The battle of the common man on the African soil didn’t help matters either. The brutality against the common man from the government institutions such as the police in Nigeria. The corruption that have so plagued my nation for so long. This I have experienced since I was born in Nigeria. Also the need for the world to see these realities of a Blackman.
I wanted the world to see so much blackness and get used to it. To accept it beyond just the color but a reality that nature has got out here , that creation has put here and it’s not going anywhere but one that the world must accept and live with. I wanted to put so much blackness out there through my work in the face of all that’s living. I started reading more about the black man’s realities and why it’s important for the world to see it, live with it and accept it.
This now led me back to 2018 when I saw my generation like guerrilla soldiers. A generation that keeps trying to survive against bad leadership on the continent and my country Nigeria.
This generation have interest in going back to the root of the matters. To connect with our past ; traditionally and culturally. Who we really are as a people and the importance of connecting with that so as to understand our present and prepare for the desired future.
We’ve realized dearth of information regards our history due to poor documentation of our past as a people and we are also conscious of the dangers of making the same mistakes of past generations even now so that the future generations will not miss out on their history like we did.
The dots on the paintings represent this dearth. My generation and the ones after us , have come to act as Reagents who’s commission is to bring a consciousness that we are the change that is expected. We must let our history teach us how to handle our present and future. Documentation must improve. Our History must be taught in schools. Our language and all forms of communication must be preserved and the use must be encouraged. A people without the knowledge of who they are, have already lost their way in the journey called life.
