Hyperflux: A Solo Contemporary Exhibition By Williams Chechet

RETRO AFRICA ENDS 30TH APRIL 2021

‘Hyperflux’, a new solo exhibition by Nigerian artist Williams Chechet is currently showing at Retro Africa in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. Chechet is known for his vibrant digital Pop Art prints, animated with portraits of Nigerian political, traditional leaders, and cultural iconography that resonate with references in Pop Art by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring twenty-eight works and three installations, the exhibition is a comprehensive display of his artistic practice spanning two decades.

Chechet meticulously merges figuration, abstraction, motif design, as well as selected images that encompass lifestyle, text, design, music, architecture, nature, and heritage. The works featured in the exhibition are centered on the themes of self-identity, history, and Western cultural references. Chechet particularly highlights his northern Nigerian heritage, with depictions of the Durbar festival and his tribe’s chief. He interrogates what it means to be African in a modern context, in a society of mass consumerism, transnational cultural flows, and in a globalized world that continues to view a static continental Africa through a monolithic lens. Chechet’s works present a vibrant exploration of past and present Nigeria, finding its influences from afrobeats as well as American hip hop and rap including Biggie Smalls who features in one of the key works in the exhibition.

While playful with his aesthetics, Chechet’s imagery also meditates upon the politics of northern Nigeria, slavery, and gender politics. Through his works Chechet subtly investigates the pan-Africanist notion of Mother Africa as a connecting element between the nations, using particularly female subjects as his symbols of liberation including his own wife and Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s sitter from Portrait of Madeleine (1800). In Chechet’s works, Madeleine’s face is repurposed and embedded into the artist’s empowering narratives, portraying her as a heroic figure riding through the male-dominated Durbar festival and also as the embodiment of Mother Africa, nursing a child born into slavery.

According to Oliver Enwonwu, Artist, son of Ben Enwonwu and President of the Society of Nigerian Artists, “Three things come to mind when contemplating the title ‘Hyperflux’. First, it is an apt description of the fast-rising contemporary artist’s rapidly evolving practice—his creative process largely spontaneous involving the isolation of photographs on a colored and flattened plane. Second, his constant oscillation from the past to the present through a depiction of traditional leaders and personages, as well as an appropriation of indigenous aesthetics and iconography mostly from northern Nigeria—pivotal to the country’s political history. Third, and perhaps the most obvious is the apparent contradiction in his adoption of digital collage—a medium that lends itself easily to the contemporary—to interrogate historical subject matter.”

About Williams Chechet

Born in Kano and raised in Kaduna, Chechet initially pursued a career in Industrial Design with a degree from the Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria. Spending his formative years in Northern Nigeria is evident in his art and creative process, and urges viewers to be culturally conscious. He believes that the role of an artist is to inspire and energize people. “I want to encourage people to pursue their passions in whatever field through my art. I want my art to serve as visual stimuli, capable of creating an emotional reaction to its complexity.”

Chechet’s work has been exhibited in Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, London, New York and featured in international art fairs such as ART X Lagos and 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. In 2018, he was one of the finalists of Access Bank sponsored ART X Prize.

About Retro Africa

Retro Africa is a contemporary art gallery and platform based in Abuja, Nigeria. Led by founder and artistic director Dolly Kola-Balogun. Since 2015 they have fostered a community of artists, enthusiasts, curators, and collectors.

Retro Africa provides a platform for emerging and established artists through a range of creative outlets such as curated exhibitions, art fairs, intercultural dialogues, and online media. Their aim is to spread awareness and encourage a cycle of growth and learning within the African art scene.

Dolly Kola-Balogun, gallery founder and artistic director said: “Hyperflux was an exhibition I desperately wanted to execute. Having worked with Williams over the better part of the last three years, I was particularly enthralled by his work, the brilliance of his mind, and his ability to take the traditional, the African, and re-imagine our world in technicolor. The accompanied video installations on retro style TVs, his LED cloud installed in the upper gallery, and the neon sign walkway and stairwell gives you a deeper glimpse into his mind, his perception of his surroundings, how he views the world and how that is subsequently re-interpreted in a world of vivid imagination. I love that Williams chose pop art as his primary medium, one which isn’t so easy to succeed in, but which only such a unique mind can excel in. I sometimes say I believe he has the makings of becoming the African Warhol, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that his work transcends even his greatest inspiration. It is authentic and inspiring in its own right.”

EXHIBITION INFO

Williams Chechet

Instagram: www.instagram.com/williamschechet/?hl=en

Retro Africa

Website: www.retroafrica.art

Instagram: www.instagram.com/retroafrica/?hl=en

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.