Celebrating Nature Through Art:  A Conversation with Jacob Enemona Onoja

Introduction

Jacob Enemona Onoja is one of Nigeria’s leading contemporary landscape painters whose works celebrate nature while exploring deeper philosophical and symbolic ideas. Inspired by the natural beauty of the Jos Plateau. Onoja uses landscape painting to express themes of faith, serenity, resilience, and humanity’s relationship with the environment. His long-running Landscape and More exhibition series reflects his commitment to expanding the possibilities of landscape painting through allegory and conceptual exploration. In this interview, Onoja discusses the experiences that shaped his artistic journey, the evolution of his landscape paintings, the role of symbolism and philosophy in his work, and the ideas that continue to inspire his creative practice.

KAD: How did you become interested in landscape painting?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Well, having grown up in Jos, Plateau State, Jos has beautiful landscapes, and I have always loved nature. I have always loved things that will wow me. I remember while growing up, one would just look up at the skyline, and what you would see in the clouds are various cloud formations. You would even see forms on the clouds, and I remember we used to say that tortoises were building or farming in the clouds. In my time while growing up, we had a lot of fun in the 70s and the early 80s. Doing all of these things inspired me to view nature closely, to have a more holistic look at nature, and sometimes just contemplate a rock. What you see on the rock surface is just amazing, and maybe now, with reading and more exposure, I get to see these things that I was seeing then, which are things we need to know and understand. 

KAD: How have your landscape paintings evolved?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: My landscapes have moved from the known and what people can pick immediately to the more complex kind of landscape paintings. It could look very simple, but it carries a lot of complexities in it because it carries a lot of allegorical statements. So virtually all my landscapes, I could say virtually about 90% of my landscape paintings now, the evolution is that you can see philosophical statements linked to one of my paintings or the other.

KAD: What inspires your landscape painting?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: My inspiration, first and foremost, is God and, of course, nature, which is God’s gift to humanity, and I am just celebrating the beauties of what God has created. Sometimes, some people will say that is being religious, but I think differently; no field of creativity is not linked to something. Some people practice spiritism in art, and some other persons probably practice some form of Hudu in creation. They mix art with performance in order to create something, so most people believe in something, and my core belief is in the fact that God made all things and makes me celebrate the very visible part of God’s nature that we see.

KAD: We have seen your landscapes exhibited in all the “Landscape and More” exhibitions. What motivated this exploration?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Landscape and More started sometime in 2014, and the motivation is that I love the landscape, so I create landscapes, and I do the best landscapes. I should feel that way proudly because I am the best in my field because of what I love doing. So, I just titled it “The Series of Landscape and More,” and “more” refers to other genres of art that I bring into my exhibition, so the “more” could be anything; it is an infinite kind of discussion. I could choose anything. Like last year, I exhibited a lot of jazz forms, which were collected by several people within and outside the country. So, more paintings deal with jazz instruments and are not landscapes. However, it has its philosophy dealing with it. So, the more you see in every series, the more it is a brand that I have created, so each of the brands I created for every year is serial in nature; it could be landscape and more 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. However, there is a theme for each of the brands for every year.

KAD: What specific ideas do you seek to present in each of your landscapes and more series?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: The ideas could be varied and diverse in nature depending on the series I am creating for that moment, for instance, the year 2023, which was the 7^th is very key, and 7 is a very key number, especially when you are dealing with Biblical dating. 7 is like a perfect period. So, this is a solo for me again that is just dealing with my works, and I am looking at something that is beyond what we have always seen, to something that is beyond and far away.

KAD: Does the depiction of water flow in your landscape paintings carry any conceptual meaning?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Yes, water will always find its way, and water will find its way among obstacles, so for us in life, the philosophy there is that for you to enjoy life, you will meet obstacles, but behave like water, find your way through the obstacles, break through the barriers, and enter into the right and proper place you are to be; those are my philosophies. More so, water has this refreshing feel; just viewing a water body sometimes stimulates something inside of you: coolness, quietness, and serenity. These are part of the philosophies.

Plate i, The Fall, Jacob Enemona Onoja, Acrylic on Canvas. 45 x 40 cm 2022. Source: The Artist

KAD: What are the symbolic inclinations in your landscape paintings?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Symbolic inclinations can be so many for me; for most of my Plateau landscapes, you will see a lot of rock formation and of course the cacti form, and for most of my works dealing with African roots, you will see a lot of the African huts. You will not see so much of the skyscrapers in my landscape paintings; that is because I want to relate with a place where you will find serenity and nature untapped in its best form

KAD: What influenced your choice of themes for your landscape paintings?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Themes, as I said earlier, are based on the inspiration I receive at the time. We pass through various moments in life. There are sweet moments, there are bitter moments, there are moments of expectations, and there are moments that you cannot pinpoint what they are. You just wake up some days and feel you are not too happy, and some days you are exceptionally too happy. Still, you can pinpoint what is creating all these. So, for me, the theme of my work sometimes is based on the issues surrounding a particular thing at that moment. For works that I have a concept of before creating them, they come out with very powerful allegories and statements, and they are easy for you to pick up. But for some others, it is after creation that I theme them. 

KAD: What philosophical ideas underlie your landscape paintings?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: The philosophy is that, from the creative works of an artist, depth of stories exudes from the philosophical depth of stories that exude from the philosophical depth of an artist; you can exude so much. You probably will not end up talking about the Mona Lisa because the depth from which Leonardo da Vinci created that work is something else. But more so, document moments of thought for the future to read and study.

KAD: How are these philosophies reflected in your work?

Jacob Enemona Onoja: Some are very obvious that people can pick up in my paintings. Take, for instance, this painting across from us titled Love Jazz and Music, the first thing people will pick is what is the philosophy behind the rose flower? What is the philosophy behind Sax and Jazz music? And then, of course, the background celebrates different musical notes that are put together, so it is very easy for some people to come and see something that is not abstract in nature to link the storyline to symbolism they can see in their piece to tell the story. So, whether the artist is there to explain or not, the story is there. So, these are some of the things I used to do. I always believe, but I might be wrong in my estimation, that art should be a readable text for any visual person.