Shrines and Shrine Masters: D.O. Ebengho and Bruce Onobrakpeya: Brief Comparative Photo Essay and Research Funding Quest 5: Iroko Shrines
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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 , 3 and 4 of this essay.
Discursive Gaps
Cosmological Vision between Ifa Hermeneutics and Ebengho's Shrine Construction
Iroko of the Night and Iroko of Osanodoze
Two of the most powerfully evocative images in Ebengho's shrine. That, to the left, the Iroko of the Night, as it may be called, evokes questions about the nature of art in relation to shrine constructs, about whether, in this instance, the simple act of draping a red and white piece of cloth over a tree represents an artistic initiative, and whether the further splashing of the blood of sacrificed animals over the cloth, amplifying the textiles' stark contrasts of red and white, amplifies this artistic expression.
May art be understood as the recreation of the evocative potential of an object by whatever alterations made to it?
This iroko tree represents what Ebengho calls the Powers of the Night, human beings of unusual power active in the zone of influence between non-human and human forces. They may be perceived as acting as a primary pole of power complementing the overarching potency of Osanodoze, the creator of the universe, represented by the iroko in front of Ebengho's shrine, shown directly below.
The sweet drinks at the base of the Iroko of Osanodoze, as the tree on the right may be called, indicate the understanding that the ultimate creator does not relate with alcoholic drinks, perhaps because they are suggestive of the potential for inebriation and disorder, of destruction of self and society, as different from the soft drinks referencing relatively unalloyed pleasure and fulfillment.
May the dramatic force of the image of the Iroko of the Night, its stark primary colours at the intersection of colour symbolism and the resonance of blood, in relation to the organic image of the tree in its far reaching associations as uniquely emblematizing vegetative nature, the entire complex integrating some of the most powerful motifs known to humanity in terms of colours, nature and the life force of animals represented by blood, indicate an aesthetic resonance, a marshalling of visual force in relation to natural form, evoking far reaching echoes in ancient symbolisms, in which varied luminosities project diverse associative possibilities operating at a level below ratiocination, below intellectual caging but even more potent for being more subconscious than conscious?
[ The preceding paragraph is broken into and slightly modified in the three succeeding paragraphs]
The dramatic force of the image of the Iroko of the Night is generated by stark primary colours at the intersection of colour symbolism and the resonance of blood, conjoining with the organic image of the tree. This organic form itself emblematizes vegetative nature in its far reaching associations.
The entire complex of the organic and the inorganic, of nature and the human made, integrates some of the most powerful motifs known to humanity in terms of colours, human creativity, vegetative nature and the life force of animals represented by blood.
Does this synthesis indicate an aesthetic resonance? Does it constitute a marshalling of visual force in relation to natural form, evoking far reaching echoes in primordial symbolisms? Does it resonate with ancient evocative strategies in which varied luminosities project diverse associative possibilities, operating at a level below ratiocination, below intellectual caging but even more potent for being more subconscious than conscious?
Perhaps the relationship between both trees, the Iroko of Osanodoze, in front of the shrine, and the Iroko of the Night, at the back, may be subsumed in terms of a journey from ultimacy to manifestation, from the quiet presence of the Iroko of Osanodoze to the multi-coloured and even disturbingly stark presence of the Iroko of the Night, as it may be called, a progression between the One and the Other in which the shrine constructs within the shrine complex the trees lead into and consummate become the Many, the multifarious possibilities of existence represented by the deities the shrines evoke, deities relating to the various aspects of human life that homo sapiens seeks understanding about and relationship with, reaching for help and guidance through identities only partly understood by their devotees?
''No humans, no orisa/deities'' a Yoruba expression goes, rendered by Wole Soyinka as ''without the knowing of divinity by man, can deity survive?'' in A Credo of Being and Nothingness.
''Any deity who provess too stubborn will be shown the wood it was carved from''- Nimi Wariboko on Kalabari spirituality in The Demons as Guests.
''We are interested only in deities that are responsive'' - Rowland Abiodun on a perspective in Yoruba spirituality in Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art.
''We wish to learn from you in your search for truth'', the deities speaking to the human beings in Mazisi Kunene's adaptation of Zulu cosmology, Anthem of the Decades.
The creator of the universe needed someone to speak with, and so created the human being- Amadou Hampate Ba on the creation story of the Komo school of the Bambara in ''Tongues that Span the Centuries'', UNESCO Courier, August-September 1979, 17-23.
The human being as sustainer of deity in a mutuality of nourishment. What could be the role of art in such a world view?
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