Shrines and Shrine Masters: D.O. Ebengho and Bruce Onobrakpeya: Brief Comparative Photo Essay and Research Funding Quest 4: From Olokun Shrine to Technological Art

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                                                                

                                                                    

                                                                  Shrines and Shrine Masters

  

                                                           D.O. Ebengho and Bruce Onobrakpeya

                                        Brief  Comparative Photo Essay and Research Funding Quest

                                                                                     4

                                                           From Olokun Shrine to Technological Art

                                                                     Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                                  Compcros

                                                         Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

                                               ''Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge''

                                                                                      Abstract

A brief comparative study of two masters of shrine art, D.O. Ebengho and Bruce Onobrakpeya, in the context of a funding quest to support  novel studies of both artists.

The pictures of Ebengho's art were taken by myself in early November 2022. The sources for images of Onobrakpeya's work are indicated in the essay.

Here are parts  1, 2 and 3 of this essay. 

 

Structure

Summary

    Discursive Gaps

    Complementary Similarities and Differences between Ebengho and Onobrakpeya

     Research Logistics

     Research Costs         

 

Research Vision

Image and Text:  Ebengho  and Orunmila Shrines

                         Cosmological Vision between Ifa Hermeneutics and Ebengho's Shrine Construction                                                   

Image and Text:  Ebengho's Divination Table, Divination Chain and Mami Wata Shrine

                             Image: Ebengho's Mami Wata Shrine

Image: Onobrakpeya's Egodo Emamiwata, Abode of Mami Wata

Image and Text: Stone, Calabash, Colour

Scope of Achievement of Ebengho and Onobrakpeya

Image and Text: Shrine Set

Image and Text:  Circles of Exploration

Scope of Research and Publication on Ebengho's and Onobrakpeya's Art

Image and Text: Music, Colour, Form

Image and Text: Metallistic Groves

Image and Text: Calm and Power           

Research Logistics

Image and Text:  Soundless Music

Image and Text:  Iroko of the Night

Image and Text:  Iroko of Osanodoze

Research Costs

Image and Text: History, Mystery, Power

                                    

                                       

                                  

                                                                     Calm and Power           

Contemplative spaces within quiet lighting or calm dimness, interspersed  with the brilliant luminosity of other compositions, a rhythm shaping Ebengho's shrine complex, is pictured above by what looks like an Olokun shrine, adapting conventions of Benin Olokun shrine installation art.

Olokun shrine art venerates Olokun, the animating intelligence and spiritual power of oceans, pervasive in all aquatic forms as water penetrates  space as a central constituent of Earth, projecting the omnipresence of Osanobua, the  creator of the universe, as Benin Olokun thought may be understood.

Emblems of the power and calm of the ocean, which may seen as suggested by the emphasis on structural solidity and the quiet luminosity of white in these forms, resonate with the strength and cleansing presence of aquatic force, as the convergence of light and near darkness constellate within a stillness suggesting the balance of reflective calm and visual power defining Benin Olokun shrine installation art.

Research Logistics

My aspiration is to visit Onobrakpeya once a  week at his house in Mushin, Lagos, to talk with him, as well as visit the Onobrakpeya Foundation premises and attend his annual artists retreat, the Harmattan Workshop, at his hometown  Agbarha Otor, in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State. 

                         

                        
                                    

                                                                Soundless Music

What is a shrine? Any point of reference inspiring reflection on the sublime, compelling adulation through representing something superlatively uplifting, evocative of what is beyond encapsulation by human understanding, even if it is created by the human being, such as this Onobrakpeya assemblage, directly above, reorganizing mechanical parts into a new unity, in harmony with other materials?

Differences within sameness, vertical alignments recurring within variations, disparate objects conjoined, generating unusual shapes which are yet beautiful on account of their visual rhythms, in their relationships  between shapes, spaces and colours, and yet which do not point to any definable reference except the demonstration of forms of order as a fundamental pattern of existence. 

                                                           Emekpeti Ona (box of art) No. II

                                                                          Mixed media

                                                                      39 x 69.2 x 2 cm

                                                                                2019

                   

                                                                           Picture by Ejiro Onobrakpeya

                                                      from Beauty and the Machine exhibition at Freedom Park, Lagos

I intend visiting Ebengho once a month at his house/shrine at 2nd Cemetery Road, off Ehaekpen Street in Benin-City, to learn from him and members of his spiritual fellowship and his family about his work and their lives in relation to their spirituality and art.