Tony Enebeli’s immensely popular ‘Procession’ artworks tell the stories of his Ukwuani people – their disappearing traditions, their history, and their culture. In these stories he also reveals universal themes of joy, communion, and celebration.
His initial pieces were long, horizontal artworks that revealed the procession of people winding their way to the market square to announce a marriage, in the case of ‘Ipu Afia’; or to signal the start of the Nkweche festival, in the case of ‘Nkweche’.
In these processions of people, children, brides, bridesmaids, excited relatives, and spectators, we find joy, colour and traces of ancient cave paintings.
Enebeli has recently begun to create abbreviated versions of his Procession artworks. These versions concentrate on specific aspects of the procession, in a vignette-like form that keeps the essence and harmony of the whole but conveys the scene in a specific way.
For Enebeli it is a way to further explore the theme without tampering with the elements. He merely takes a piece of the original artwork and presents it as a new whole. We can now explore the joys of the marriage procession and the Nkweche procession by exploring the different groups involved.