An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Fabric
By Georgina Beier
16 April - 10 May
Opened by Friederike Krishnabhakdi-Vasilakis Thursday April 19.
GEORGINA BEIER was born in London in l938. Her artistic career began when she moved to Nigeria at the age of 21 where she lived and worked for 10 years. Georgina went on to spend 8 years in Papua New Guinea and 11 years in Germany. Her work incorporates a great variety of artistic media, including; Painting, drawing, wood cuts, etchings, screen prints, welded iron sculpture, silver plated copper sculpture, applique textiles, screen printed textiles and costumes for Yoruba masquerades.
She has held over 30 solo exhibitions in Germany, England,
the US, Australia, Nigeria and the Philippines. Georgina has also participated in over 30 group shows including "The Short Century" curated by Okwui Enwezor, which travelled from Munich to Berlin, Chicago and New York from 2001-2002. Her work also featured in “Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis” at the Tate Modern, London in 2001.
This exhibition explores three different phases of Georgina's work…
It commences in -
Room 1 with a collection of recent paintings of Yoruba ancestral masquerades, 2003-2006.
Georgina first encountered these powerful masquerades nearly half a century ago. Rowland Abiodun, Professor of Art History and Black Studies at Amherst College USA has commented: “This is the greatest representation of EGUNGUN (ancestral masks) I have ever seen. It challenges your imagination. When I spent two weeks in Sydney recently I saw many people walking into Georgina's living room. None of them walked past these pictures, without being electrified. This new series of Georgina's paintings is unlike anything else in art! You can't relate them to any other art form.”
 Room 2 contains black & white drawings 250cm x 150cm, l989.
Rowland Abiodun commented: “Georgina discovered the versatility of line. She can charge it with all kinds of functions. She can create a monumental work with line. She can create mood with line: she can command line to do a solo performance.”
Room 3 The DVD screen in this room shows a performance of a Yoruba "Alarinjo" group in front of the palace of the 'Ataoja' (king) of the town of Oshogbo in l993. The Alarinjo performances were a mixture of classical dance, acrobatics and a wide variety of masks. This group commissioned Georgina to design two types of masks for them: the IGUNUKU and the IPADA.
The Igunuku is a four metre high cloth pillar. The dancer can make it shrink to a small heap of about 30cm during the performance. Igunuku masks had not been used for several generations, so she had to reinvent them. A photograph of an Igunuku mask is hanging above the DVD player. IPADA is a costume that has to be turned inside out by the performer during the dance. Georgina's Ipada costumes have completely different designs and colours on each side. There is an Ipada costume suspended from the ceiling and there are 7 photos showing Ipada dancers in action.
Nick Waterlow, director of the Ivan Dougherty Gallery at the College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales, commented: “In the GEORGINA BEIER book one of the most astonishing things my eyes alighted on were the costumes she made in the early l990's for the 'Ipada' and 'Igunuku' masqueraders dance sequences. Only somebody deeply immersed, both practically and spiritually, in that part of Africa, could possibly have created such magical things.”
Georgina Beier’s public works include:
MURALS: Yoruba Palaces, Nigeria
University residence, Oshogbo Nigeria (Mural &mosaic)
'Iwalewa Haus' Bayreuth, Germany
WELDED IRON SCULPTURE:
University of Ife, Nigeria
Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, Port Moresby
Gold Coast College of Advanced Education, Queensland
Oceania Centre for Art & Culture, USP, Suva ,Fiji
THEATRE SETS:
Yoruba Theatre companies in Nigeria
Student Theatre, University of Papua New Guinea
Concerts of Multicultural Music in Bayreuth, Germany
NEW ART MOVEMENTS IN NIGERIA AND PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
Georgina Beier has been the catalist of new art movements in Oshogbo, Nigeria and Port Moresby, PNG. She worked on a one to one basis - never in a class. She received no funds from any institution, but supplied all materials and sometimes sustenance from her own resources. Several world famous artists emerged from her activities:
Twins Seven-Seven, Muraina Oyelami, Bisi Fabunmi , Rufus Ogundele, Mufu Ahmed, etc. from Nigeria; Akis, Kauage and Ruki Fame from Papua New Guinea.
For more detailed information on Georgina Beier see the following publications:
GEORGINA BEIER
Verlag fur moderne Kunst, Nuernberg, 2001
(the text is in English) Contributors include four African art historians and artists, an African poet, a Chinese scholar, an English print maker and a German PhD student; as well as contributions by Georgina herself.
THIRTY YEARS OF OSHOGBO ART
Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, l991
and the following magazines:
KOVAVE
special issue
'Modern Images from Niugini'
Jacaranda Press l974
GIGIBORI
A Magazine of New Guinea Cultures
Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies l974-78
seven issues
Works included in this exhibition are not for sale.
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