Nigeria Artwork: Local artist uses his exhibitions to focus on societal issues

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Nigeria's contemporary artists are often influenced by the country's rich cultural diversity. In Jos, Plateau State, an artist is using his exhibition to focus on the current feud between farmers and herders -- clashes which have CLAIMED thousands of lives in North Central Nigeria. CGTN's Samson Omale reports.

Onoja Jacob has been painting since he was eleven. He has spent a better part of his life in Jos, North central Nigeria. This Exhibition is about the city's unique landscape which mirrors the devastating consequence of violence and internally displaced persons.

JACOB ONOJA VISUAL ARTIST "This painting is titled deserted fortress. The issues of Conflict are causing communities to be ravaged and so many people have left their homes as you can see, this whole place is deserted, beautiful landscape but there is just no figure here."

PROFESSOR JERRY BUHARI VISUAL ARTIST "This exhibition speaks about the innocence of nature. If you look at the paintings there a sense in which the paintings are indifferent to religion, it is indifferent to ethnicity."

At the Jos Museum of Traditional Nigerian architecture, which houses different work of visual arts, artistic expressions here differ in techniques, ideas, materials and subject matter.

SAMSON OMALE JOS, NIGERIA "Nigeria visual artists are gradually introducing themes in their paintings and exhibitions that are largely addressing contemporary matters of human concern that are sometimes local and often global."

JACOB ONOJA VISUAL ARTIST "Currently in our nation art is actually liberating looking at the medical field there are instances we use act as a therapy for people that are having some form of psychosomatic disorders and beyond the practice of art to enjoy what art is, art is a form of economic liberation."

These Painters approach is using exhibitions to give voice to the varied and changing cultural landscape of identities, values, beliefs and the failure of leadership in Nigeria. Samson Omale, CGTN, Jos Nigeria.