Sabastine wins 8th Annual National art competition

By ESTHER EGBE

THREE of the 12 contestants in the eighth National Art Competition have emerged winners in the grand finale that recently took place at Kongi’s Harvest Gallery, Hospital road,Freedom Park Lagos.
The grand winner is Sabastine Ugwuoke for his work ”No Rest, No Comfort and Confusion Everywhere. He won N2 million in cash prize. Ugwoke was followed by May Okafor’s Dear Contents” which got N1 million; and Ngozi Omeji, for Against All Odds came third.
This year’s edition themed Future Histories was organized by the African Artists’ Foundation, and was sponsored by the Nigerian Breweries.
According to the organizers, Future Histories seeks to provoke the thought of artists on how innovation and creativity can be utilized as a tool to shape and mould the future history of Nigeria.
They maintained that future starts from the premise that the artist is a barometer and prognosticator of society and is able to design ,create and narrate a future for the nation based on experience and knowledge of the past and that artistic quality that allow her to imagine newer narratives that are yet explored.
During the chat with the winners, Sabastine said that he knew he would come out the winner because he took so much time to bring out the art work.
He said his works, taking three months to complete, talk about the restiveness in Nigeria’s northeast where insecurity is at issue. The work predicts that if the menace of Boko Haram and other related security issues are not critically addressed ,the whole country will one day be thrown into anarchy when the challenge is spread all over the country.
Ngozi, whose work also lasted three months, said that in the past,histories have shown how human beings in attempt to determine and know the time, created the hourglass, and their hands will continue to manipulate, search, research and experience to reshape beliefs, culture and future.