Rom Isichei’s Triptych Painting

A remarkably evolved visual vocabulary distinguishes Rom Isichei’s works from those of his peers. He has come a long way from 1997, the year he settled for full-time studio practice, Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes

It’s all quiet at Rom’s. No, that’s not quite correct. He’s downstairs in the dining area of his posh Ilupeju, Lagos State-based residence, bending over a laptop – two laptops, as a matter of fact.

Preparations for his next biennial solo exhibition – opening two days after the conclusion of the US-based Dele Jegede’s at Nike Art Gallery in Lekki, Lagos – should be top on his priority list. So he is, it seems, putting finishing touches to his catalogue.

Featuring at the coming solo exhibition, which is the seventh since he began the biennial ritual, are paintings (as usual), mixed media with sculptural relief effects and assemblages. Its confirmed title, Quiet Spaces, alludes to how Nigerians generally react to socio-political events in their (quiet) private spaces.

That sounds like Rom (full name, Rom Isichei): always commenting on a social issue with his exhibitions. “My themes have always been the same,” he admits. “What usually changes are my techniques.”

His techniques have indeed evolved over the years and with each of the six solo exhibitions held so far. Take his initial introduction of mixed-media paintings, for instance. From seeming at first cautious, it has eventually become one of the hallmarks of his studio practice.

Then, he had introduced the assemblages with just a work tagged Not For Sale. The work elicited enough curiosity to encourage the production of more of its kind. With growing acceptance, the assemblages have evolved in both quantity and quality.

Social commentary, Rom explains, is what his career as an artist is really all about. “[Every] artist is a social observer. The modus operandi is what differs from one artist to the other.”

A social commentator hopes for some kind of impact on his audience. Or, does he not? A long-suffering smile turns up both corners of his lips. He’d rather not dwell on that for the fear of sounding immodest or like a commercial artist.

“The impact is more on the ‘material language’ used in interpreting everything.” There is a pathetic effort at restraining himself from sounding patronisingly didactic! “For every show, I develop a new language. I draw from the previous ‘material language’ to support the present one.”

It is obvious:  he’d rather the audience not be talked about as though they had to be patrons. An exhibition should be a platform to proclaim his world views, not just to sell out his works.

It is for this reason that he’d prefer not to bask in the adulations or relish the patronage level. No artist should judge his show by the public’s acceptance. Otherwise, his career would surely veer off course.

Two inevitable anecdotes slip into our conversation. The first is about a concerned friend once cautioning him against holding a solo exhibition during an economic recession. He had rejoined that he does not take recessions into consideration when fixing dates for his shows.

And the second? “In my last show, a lady saw the favourable comments in the visitors’ book and said I must be a happy person. I told her, I would disappoint her with my answer, which was ‘yes and no’. ‘

Yes’, because I am supposed to be elated. ‘No’, because every success puts me under pressure to work harder and harder.”

This Yaba College of Technology graduate with more than a decade studio practice experience is acknowledged in the art circles as a painter. This means his works should be two-dimensional in form, right?

Not necessarily. With his palette-knife, he sometimes coats the colours so thickly that his paintings end up looking like sculptural reliefs. The lush impasto paintings explain his predilection for mixed-media works and assemblages.

“No artist is restricted to the use of any particular media. [Pablo] Picasso painted and sculpted. So did several other famous artists. Besides, there are some themes, I felt would not be given sufficient interpretation with the conventional oil on canvas. So you’d need other media to interpret them.”

Whatever his works would look like in future!  Perhaps, he’d completely abandon 2D for 3D? Rom shakes his head as he leans back on his seat, an elbow resting on the glass-topped dining table. That condescending smile again plays around his lips.

“When I’m asked about the future, I answer that I know what I’m doing today and what I did yesterday,” he says. “But I’m open-minded about what I’d be doing tomorrow.”

None of what he is currently doing was planned, he adds. His use of found objects for his mixed-media paintings as well as his experiments with the assemblages was entirely accidental.

He feels fulfilled enough after each show to look forward to his next one. He also feels fulfilled enough to seek new “material languages” to add to the current ones and to wake up happy that he’s doing what he’s currently doing.

He had previously worked in three advertising agencies before his decision in 1997 to settle for full-time studio practice. Six solo and several group exhibitions after, he has worked his way up the ladder-rungs of reckoning in the local art scene.

Currently, he is listed in the Smithsonian Museum of African Art Library’s Who is Who in Contemporary Nigerian Art as well as in Alfred Spinnler’s coffee-table book, Contemporary Art in Nigeria and Ghana.

His “Thank God, I’m an artist” reverberates with his sense of fulfillment and gratitude.

It’s soon time to see the works he plans to show for his forthcoming exhibition upstairs. There are first of all the works belonging to the Body Language Series, stacked along the passage.

The five works (three red-themed and two green-themed) are relief paintings contrived with wood dust and glittering textile materials. “They explore the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do syndrome in the society,” he says about the works, which are basically stylised portraits.

Another painting titled “The Preacher’s Wife” not only echoes the same theme, but is also contrived with the same material language. “The preacher here does not refer to the religious leaders alone. I’m also referring to our hypocritical political leaders.”

Stacked in a large store room off the end of the passage are the bulk of the works. There is “Devotion and Devoir”, a stylised painting which explores the multitasking life of an African woman. 

“Venerations” depict three children with arms stretched out skywards to a full moon. There are more works arranged in series. Perhaps the most exciting of these are the works in the Lines in Motion Series, which are obvious extensions of the artist’s fixation on the brick wall effect.

The rest of the works are in his expansive studio. Rom, it seems, has stored his most engaging works here. Besides his four-panel assemblages, contrived with corrugated iron sheets, printers’ plates and flattened milk tins among other things, there are also paintings like “Glitterati”, “Rites of Passage” (The Dance)  and “Ovation Pose” belonging to another series.

The few other works, Rom explains as he leads the way downstairs, are not part of his forthcoming solo exhibition.

Edited By: Gabriella Osamor