Exploring themes of home and familial responsibilities, solitude, identity and duality and death and the afterlife, Egwuh utilizes multiple modes of representation from expressionistic painting techniques to geometric patterns — drawn from textile designs from his hometown, Idoma in Benue state — in representing form and space. His eclectic visual vocabulary conveys varying textures of lives lived and spaces occupied.
For this solo exhibition, Egwuh presents multiple paintings on canvas and works on paper while employing a mixture of lines and images drawn in graphite to create grayed-out, muted backgrounds in contrast to the painted central subjects. The pieces in this exhibition, which feature subjects against checkerboard landscapes with striped images of snakes and ladders floating, are influenced by and make reference to the vintage Snakes and Ladders games. The exhibition centers on the individual and collective decisions that shape our perception of the moral and social aspects of life, much like the game’s origins, which have their roots in Indian philosophy and were originally intended to teach moral lessons to children and adults.
