Chukwudubem Ukaigwe: Another Octave Higher

Catriona Jeffries announces Another Octave Higher, the first solo exhibition by artist Chukwudubem Ukaigwe with the gallery. The exhibition comprises intricate painted compositions of figure and noise reaching a pitch of silence, with a colour palette reflecting his cultural and family history of west Africa. Ukaigwe’s commitment to a multi-faceted weave of cultural forms is infused with the influences of music histories and sound.

Here in my apartment on the fourth floor, there is a large tree right outside the window which frames my view. In the winter months when its leaves fall off, I am permitted the ability to see the cityscape through the omissions of leaves in webbing branches. Right there, towering buildings far-ahead, is a monument.

In summer months, the tree filled up with leaves is all I can see, obscuring and clouding my judgment of what lies beyond; other than an intermittent morning sunlight, when allowed to hit me at an angle, wakes me up. Whilst I cannot see the monument, I know it is there.
How else can I characterize sounding out the false silence produced by an octave raised many times over?

The shitload of implied meaning if I am to sit still enough to listen to the operatic rumbling pitches of my gut; whatever is intuited. Whatever is apparent, too up- close it fades to obscurity, becomes overlooked; the given of a tentacular metro weaving this city again unto itself without ceasing, irrespective of the season.

Whatever is permitted as backdrop, akin to the constant passage of water under the bridge, a stream running into the river orchestrating these dispersals, venous and omnipresent like an immigrant on every city corner. The insignificance of river flow—redundant like the violence in daily news—pushing diastolic against arteries of water channels; slipping in-between heartbeats into our capacious ocean too busy to notice.
What imminence of flood or drought is required to reconcile with the languid sound of water running urgent? How can we open our ears a little wider or listen a bit differently in anticipation?
–Chukwudubem

catrionajeffries.com