Go With The Flow

Vasilis Chukwunonso Onwuaduegbo (2020). Go With The Flow [Acrylic on 14 in x 11 in canvas]. The Lessons Collection compiled in Harlem, U.S.A.

I believe that in every artists’ journey; there is a reckoning, or a myriad of reckonings.

A moment or a collection of moments where they decide on a voice and on a persona; where they make an agreement with their muses to create art centered around similar themes and subjects.

There they make grand decisions like opting for paint as opposed to poetic language (as in the case with Peter Sacks), or something more specific like choosing to elevate blackness in one’s music (as in the case with the beautiful Nina Simone).

In my creative journey, as I have fallen deeper and closer to my gut, I have become more aware of the lenses through which I want to present the world in.

I like saying that ‘there are as many stories as there are people’, but our global cultural environment systematically assigns certain types of stories greater value and more importance over other dissimilar but completely valid stories. The climate in which we all currently exist in works diligently to criminalize, belittle, dehumanize and ‘other’ the narratives of a ‘select few’.

Even the lie, that the systemic undervaluing of entire histories is related to a supposed minority status, is part and parcel of the whole othering process.

I exist in this world as a human, i.e. I am simply human, but unfortunately, it is recommended that I am aware of social groupings and their complicated and their convoluted histories. With the groupings in mind, I am also black, and African (specifically West African, then Nigerian, then a Delta Igbo Festac Boy), and queer (gay, non-binary trans, he/they and femme), and a casualty of this broken economic system, and an immigrant (Nigerian born in Greece, raised in Ireland, Nigeria and America) and so much other more niched ones.

When I factor in historical and contemporary context, I come face-to-face with the fact that a lot of my identity markers, when considered individually or at their intersections, are markers that suffer under the weight and siege of the global sociocultural paradigm the world is subscribed to.

So, when I fall deeper into myself, I reemerge to the world above with an even clearer resolve to create and exist in service of elevating and prioritizing those markers and their intersections.

I was in this frame of mind when I started working on a piece of canvas. I think I started by covering it with a coat of white, but by the time it was done, I was disappointed to see that the piece was stereotypically African. From the deep purple background to the repetitive white symbols, I could imagine it being on any Africa-inspired Pinterest board.

I remember thinking that I should start again, that I should use my tube of white acrylic paint for the erasure.

My reasoning: I would not be caught in such a compromised position where it appears that I am endorsing oppressive depictions of my reality.

I was willing to snuff out a creation gifted to me by the unknowables, because I wanted to kneel down before my commitment to nuance, complexity and dignity in depictions of the world around me.

I was willing to ignore my gut and the chi that whispers, just because I wanted to ‘elevate’ Africanness.

‘I would not be caught dead making a mockery or playing into degradating tropes about Africa.’

But just before I could succumb to the pressures of superior, the voices were quick to remind me that before any categorization or assignment of social value, my creations are perfectly made. The voices were kind to remind me to trust the process, go with the flow.

The voices were delighted to insist that instead of fretting over the supposed social consequences of a product of my artistic inquires, I should lean into the process and let it be what it is.

Go With The Flow, the name of this beautiful piece, reminds me to let things be as they are.

But I can’t help but think:

Do artists have a responsibility to bolster progressive and complex representations of the world around them or do they have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of their artistic expression?