Recently featured in the small is beautiful. miniature art exhibition series with Oladimeji Alabi – Àsìkò means “Moment”.
Àsìkò láyé can also be translated as “Time or Season”. Oftentimes, it is used to express the philosophy of life in Yoruba culture.
This artwork was created to address sexism against women because in Nigeria, there’s so much pressure on women from families and society to prove their worth. Marriage has sadly become the new measure of a woman’s success, forgetting that life is in seasons – this is non-negotiable. Life happens, but at the right time, everything will fall into place.
Art collecting is a passionate sport. As a passion, a collection of art does not have to be budget breaking. Art is not just for the extremely wealthy. I often recommend new collectors to pursue miniatures as a budget friendly route because they are usually more affordable. Miniatures often follow the same concepts or share a unifying theme. This makes it super easy for anyone to curate a collection for display in their homes, office, or commercial properties. It is common practice for art collectors to curate the display of their art collection. An enviable collection of artworks typically follow the same concepts, design principles, themes, narratives, etc. They are called a ‘series of work’ or ‘body of work.’
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The beautiful thing about miniatures is that they are easy collectibles that anyone can take advantage of; wealthy people, upcommers, seasoned collectors, and new collectors. How much money you have does not restrict you from collecting miniatures. Contrary to what you may conclude, miniatures throughout history have been seen to be comparatively worth the same in value as the artist value grows. Sometimes, they can be worth more than regular sized artworks. This is because the ability for an artist to imagine a concept and translate it into bite-sized canvas as a form is truly a tasking process. Miniatures give little to no room for mistakes. This thus requires an artist to almost have fully formed his ideas before his first stroke.
As an investment vehicle, the size is of little importance. The value is rather placed on the artist and the intricacy of the art, less on the size of the artwork. A miniature piece by one of the masters will always be of higher value than a piece done by an emerging artist. Paradoxically, a miniature piece by a master can also be worth more than a regular or large sized artwork by the same artist. Similarly, art pieces done by a miniaturist – an artist whose art form is miniature – will not be valued any less than that of his/her contemporaries who canvas their art in large pieces.
As you may be concluding, miniature is truly an interesting form of art. An inch to 32 inches of art boggles the mind in ways unimaginable. This was very evident in the maiden edition of the just concluded exhibition series ‘small is beautiful – with Oladimeji Alabi’. His body of works were 65% sold at the private viewing reception, and 95% sold out at the end of the event with multiple requests for further commissions.
This is validation that there is a growing appetite for miniature art in our industry. As a unique art form and budget friendly investment, miniature art might have found its place in the African art scene.
Miniatures are truly satisfying to collect, to display, to enjoy, and to speak of. They can easily fit into any and every location; your office cubicle, bedroom, restaurants, living room, and so on. Miniatures reduce if not eliminate the entry barriers for anyone to collect and experience the beauty of art.
As a budget friendly alternative, I encourage everyone to collect miniatures.
Until next digest,
explore collecting miniatures as an art form.
