The Wheatbaker Art Collection

The Eye, 2011 Metal, 205 cm diameter

The “Eye 2011” is part of a capsule study series of sculptures that began in 2006, in Boone North Carolina, USA. In the capsule study series, my strategy is to invoke the aura, the fourth and fifth dimension of an object. The visible physical dimension in artworks also invokes curiosity as to what lies beneath the surface. In the study of optics, the eye processes tons of images using large amounts of pixelated optical data carefully and overtly arranged, and transmitted to the brain to interpret. The brain, using the duct known as the optic nerve, thus guides us consciously away from danger, towards care and love.

The “eye 2011”’ is a sculpture with nails that travelled through different seaports of the world to arrive at the Lagos seaport. These nails are extracted at Amu Timber market where nails and pinewood cases part ways, only to meet again as a collectible in a collectors’ home as furniture or sculptures. The small nails of the “eye 2011” symbolically represent pixelated optical data, the twisted rods or rib bars of the optic nerves, and the stainless steel ring is the brain that cyclically process information.

Regardless of the location where it is mounted, the “eye 2011” will continue to play the dual roles of seeing the activity around it and being the object of the gaze. The “eye 2011” measures 81 inches in diameter and weighs 61 kg. It is left in its rusted state as a testimonial to latent energy but frozen in a capsule with a finish made out of a combination of sanding sealer and lacquer.

Olu Amoda
Olu Amoda

Olu Amoda

Olu Amoda (born 1959) has worked consistently over the past three decades to create a sculptural language that has unique character and beauty. Working as a sculptor, muralist, furniture designer, and multimedia artist, Amoda is best known for using repurposed materials found from the detritus of consumer culture. His works often incorporate rusty nails, metal plates, bolts, pipes, and rods, that are welded together to create figures, animals, flora and ambiguous forms. Amoda uses these materials to explore sociopolitical issues relating to Nigerian culture today, from sex, politics, race and conflict to consumerism and economic distribution. More recently, Amoda has experimented with new materials and processes as he examines issues of privacy, surveillance, and voyeurism in the Nigerian urban environment. Amoda graduated in sculpture from Auchi Polytechnic, Nigeria, and received a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Georgia Southern University, USA. Amoda has participated in exhibitions in the UK, USA, Switzerland, and his native Nigeria, among others. His works can found in many prestigious art collections including the Newark Museum and Fondation Blachère.

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