ART REVIEW: Portraits of Emotions By Aguh Chibuzo

Reviewed by Dr. Stan Ukeje

There are broadly two classes of things in Nature – Living and Non-living things. Living things, whether animals or plants, react to nature, the environment and circumstances in which they find themselves, at any time.

The reactions are emotions and they display the outcome or Art, produced by interactions.

Using what he termed Differential Emotions Scale or DES-IV, Carroll Izard of the University of Delaware, identified twelve discrete emotions—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Surprise, Disgust, Shame, Guilt, Shyness, interest, Contempt and Self-Hostility.

By portraying these emotions, Creative Artists capture and convey the state of persons or things in the course of life. When new life emerges successfully, the emotion of joy is displayed and when death occurs, the emotion of sadness is displayed.

Between the time life starts and the time life ends, different emotions are displayed. In capturing emotions in Art, the Creative Artist helps humanity develop emotional intelligence.

Business or Marketing Communication benefit from appropriate Portraits of Emotions as is commonly seen in billboards, book illustrations and skits.

Going through the works Aguh Chibuzo has lined up for this Modern and Contemporary Art Exhibition, I find that they are intelligible and intelligent creations that have relevance to everyday experiences of man in the society.

By showing faces, mostly, we are able to identify the emotions conveyed, because the face is the clearest display board of emotions.

The works titled Delight convey the emotion of a mother and child that everybody can identify with while the work titled Unleashed shows a young boy screaming, which could either be out of the feeling of excitement or sadness.

There are also other wonderful portraits with emotions such as Desire, Satisfaction, Hope, Delight, Happiness.

Chibuzo used a combination of Music and Art to appeal to both the eyes and also the mind, as just looking at the Arts and listening to the music paints a complete image of the emotion being felt.

It is therefore my pleasure—an emotion— to recommend PORTRAITS OF EMOTIONS to Art Lovers and Patrons. Come October 1, 2022, Portraits of Emotions will be presented by Aguh Chibuzo at the Signature Beyond Art Gallery, Ikoyi Lagos.