‘Emotional Landscape’ – Young Artists Take On Human’s Need To Emote

December 13, 2024 – Photocarrefour Gallery hosted a duo exhibition by fledgling artists Hannah Pololis Chundusu and Alfred Paul Laki titled ‘Emotional Landscape’.

Curated by Awin ‘Wing’ Daniel, ‘Emotional Landscape’ features artists with two different styles of art – traditional (painting) and digital art – and take on human expressions. The exhibition aims at hammering home man’s need to express his or her emotions, as emotions when unaddressed, tend to not disappear rather find other toxic ways of letting itself out – such as bad judgements or transferred aggression.

The young curator, Daniel, said the title came about post a review of the artists’ works whose initial title suggestions felt off.

Working in different styles – University of Jos, Art major, Chundusu works with oil on canvas, with ‘newspaper linings’ as primer for her canvas, but occasionally – as a part of her narrative. She visualizes emotion by first thinking about them, engaging with people on the subject, then sitting with collated image before either sketching out the visualized image on paper, or working directly on her canvass.

“I don’t draw with references. I paint off heart, and I paint portraits because it captures the emotions better.”

Conversely, Veritas University Economics graduate, Laki is fascinated by gamers ability to build characters, worlds and texture in the digital world. Hence his shift from drawings to digital art, as it allows “a lot of space to reworking and editing until (the image is) perfect,” he said.

But how does one deploy a medium that is more often ‘too clean and pretty’ in depicting a subject (emotion) that is hardly ever clean or pretty, rather messy?

Props go to Laki for expressing pent-up emotion in ‘Anger’ featuring a mouthless subject’s struggle to break free of its entangled limbs. The well of frustration channeled in the wide-mouthed portrait ‘Scream’, and his biblical/Classical art references of Christ crucified and The Pieta in the images, ‘Nativity’ and ‘Hold Me Up’, alongside a literal translation of ‘Heartless’.

Chundusu’s non-asymmetrical features in ‘Imperfect’ suggests imperfection, and the uneven plane and varying choice of colour of the subject’s features in ‘Untitled’ indicate ‘a sense of battered-ness’.

Similarly, both artists affirm that both sexes are capable of emotional expression, though with differences in the manner and level of willingness to do so.

But the gamble didn’t completely pay off. Although art is subjective, and artists possess artistic license to create, there are rules of art they are expected to follow in terms of genres and visual representation. Thus, both artists’ works ‘Rebirth’, ‘Nativity’ and ‘Hold Me Up’ – lack the visual symbolisms that align to translate into – the ‘reborn’ concept they espouse. Same as Chundusu’s ‘Background Noise’ which projects more of ‘an out of it’ emotion than ‘Self-Reflection’. There was something in her ‘Untitled’ that is so close to depicting a visual definition of self-perception.

However, for fledging and non-full-time artists this is a good start. The exhibition came with many lessons, including an evolved outlook of their craft and why they create art, and the willingness to continuously explore variant forms of creative expression.

Chundusu said, “I used to paint because I love art. It is still one of the best ways to express myself. I have realised (art) is something I have to be intentional about doing, and about pushing out,” said Chundusu.

“I am planning an exhibition for next year. It will largely feature traditional art – painting/drawing, just to show that creativity shouldn’t be limited. Perhaps follow that with an exhibition combining both traditional and digital art,” concluded Laki.