By Lucky Isibor
Stakeholders in the Arts Industry have tasked government at all levels to create the enabling environment for arts, culture and tourism to thrive by investing in the sector to create wealth and employment opportunities for the youths.
Director of Black Passionate Art Gallery Ltd, Mr Ugo Emmanuel Chidi, in Benin city, Weekend called on Government to expedite action in its efforts to grow the economy by considering investment in Arts.
He made the call during a three day art exhibition programme in Benin City tagged, “Art and Wine exhibition”, put together to facilitate the improvement of Art exhibition both locally and internationally.
Ugo noted that the event which is to among others promote the works of arts of local artists, is also aimed at bridging the gap between art and the general public.
According to him, Art and Wine is one of the concepts that will enable us to bridge the gap between art and the people by bringing those who naturally will not have interest in Art to see some good works of Art and feel the taste of some high quality wines.
While stating that Art and Wine exhibition are avenue of expanding the frontiers of art product and creativity, Ugo added that art and wine are both products of creativity as it takes a lot of creativity and diligence to produce works of art and good quality wines.
In his words, “Wine mature with age same thing with art, now you can see the both have similarities. We are using this medium to break the barriers and expand the frontiers.
“On the other hand, we are using art and wine exhibition to launch and unveil bigger project called face of art coming up soon. Face of Art is a concept that will be seeing us creating and projecting Art in global platform for the promotion of Africa art particularly, Nigeria Art.”
An exhibition artist Usman Alvin, also at the exhibition ground to showcase his works of art said the programme will give them opportunity to tell the world what they are made of and called on government to collaborate with them and direct interest in the work of Art.
Another participant at the exhibition Eugene Omoruyi, a mixed media Art in painting also gave more insight about the exhibition.
