Fidelis Joseph

This marks the gallery's first collaboration with the artist who was recently awarded an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art Michigan, USA.

Joseph’s practice fuses his direct and indirect life experiences in Nigeria and the United States with the everyday information he collects from news media, in constant exploration of the profundity of the human condition. For Fidelis, the mind contains a wealth of information, and his interest in artistic media is to set forth fragments of events or scenes that he has encountered. He considers himself a documentarian. In the depth of his visuality is a treasure trove of the sublimity of African storytelling. There are nuanced odes to childhood stories passed on from his grandmother, the surrealism of some African folktales, such as Amos Tutuola, and the mythological conceit of Chigozie Obioma, Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, J.P Clark, among other African writers. Alongside are western writers such as Dan Brown. He attributes his interest in fiction as contributing to his visual vernacular.

With each of the pieces presented, he intends to capture a subject matter that surfaces through the exploration of shapes and forms, and makes the impression of gestural representation, obscuring figuration, fragmentation and fractured imagery to encapsulate a more comprehensive narrative. His practice involves him learning from a finished piece in ways that he did not plan as his creative process is that which is led by intuition. In other words, his practice teaches him, as he tries to catch up with his intuition, at which point he feels satisfied. He looks for key lines and forms that reveal themselves and he thinks and reflects. He learns from what he thinks he knows, and it is rarely conclusive.

Fidelis Joseph was recently mentioned in the Financial Times as an artist setting a standard in the Nigeria art scene. His work was acquired by the Cranbrook Art Museum following his end of degree exhibition.