Chinedu [2023]

Blood Red Marble

[16.14 x 12.6 x 22.65in] 30kg

Made in the wake of the last Presidential elections, which saw the Artist’s hometown of Lagos engulfed in ethnic division, xenophobia and targeted violence, Chinedu is a piece which conveys his feelings as an Igbo man on the current state of inter-tribal relations in the country. The name of the piece, which normally translates from Igbo to mean ‘God is leading’, morphed into use as a derogatory slur in the wake of Lagos’s last Gubernatorial elections, as tensions which have long simmered under the surface of Nigeria as a whole came bubbling to the fore of the political landscape once more. The use of blood red marble, the lash marks on his skin and his enraged expression, all combine to convey the responses stirred up in the collective consciousness of Anthony and indeed the Igbo people as a whole.