‘That’s freedom’ Artist Timothy Orikri blows Lansing a creative kiss

The chance to see your hometown through fresh, creative and loving eyes is a rare gift.

Nigerian-born artist Timothy Orikri, of Detroit,  has been spending a lot of time in Lansing lately and he's offering that gift to jaded denizens of the capital city. 

The exhibit of 35 paintings at Knapp’s Center, beginning Friday, throws a familiar cityscape into a joyful confetti blender of “isms” that can only be summed up as Orikri-ism.

“I’m a mixed media artist,” he said  “Take a closer look at my work and you’ll find strings, burlap straw, corrugated paper, pistachio nuts, tree bark.”

To create a rust-belt fantasia of the Boji Tower, Orikri spent more than 50 hours gluing macaroni, slices of cork, Mardi Gras beads, straws and clothespins onto wood. He burnished the city’s tallest building in coppery light, with a bright yellow sun circling the clock at the top — a real clock, embedded in the wood.

He slices buildings and sightlines into half-moons and polygons and fills the resulting spaces with eye-popping colors and textures. Even the state Hall of Justice, a forbidding, postmodern slab of pale limestone, comes alive under his brush.

“Somebody will tell me, ‘Come on, those walls don’t have colors. They’re white,’” he said. “Well, that’s creativity. That’s freedom. Sometimes cubism will work, sometimes abstraction. Sometimes I see a little Impressionism at play.”

He knows his painstaking process, and prolific output, borders on obsession.

“It’s gruesome, it’s painful,” he admitted. “I work so hard sometimes I don’t know what day it is, but this is my therapy. It’s cheaper to do art than go to a shrink. You never get an overdose, you don’t need a prescription and there are no side effects.”

Orikri was born in Warri, a bustling big city in southern Nigeria. His parents were both teachers, and his father was a preacher. He struggled to pass his classes and ended up at age 17 in boarding school, where he met German-Nigerian artist Ufumoa Mowoe.

Impressed by Mowoe’s facility with oils, pastels, life drawings and textiles, Orikri announced to his parents that he wanted to be an artist. It was not easy to get their support.

“There was a stigma that artists just suffer and waste time,” he said. 

When Orikri’s father urged him to go into the ministry, he had a ready reply.

“I told him, ‘I’ll do what your doing in the pulpit with my easel and paint.’”

Orikri’s latest extended sermon, “Lansing on My Mind,” is equal parts inspiration and hard work.

“I wanted to generate wonder, for people to love their city, something we could embrace and celebrate,” he said.

The epitome of Orikri’s artistic philosophy is his Butterfly Project, a series of colorful scenes depicting butterflies he is placing in hospitals around the state. 

The title has a double meaning. Orikri believes his art taps into the “butterfly effect” — the idea that tiny actions can have vast, unknown consequences — and he believes it has the potential to help patients and families heal.

His artistic zeal and talent won his parents over. He worked hard as an art student at Delta State University in Nigeria and graduated in 1991. He was an art teacher “for a minute,” but he was stifled by the rigid curriculum.

“I believe in experimentation,” he said. “Picasso would say, ‘learn the trade, then break the rules.’”

He noticed that foreign tourists, many of them from the United States, were buying his work at airports and gift stores. At 28, he announced to his parents that he would go to America. He started out in St. Louis in 1995 and gravitated to Detroit, attracted by the openness of the city’s creative scene.

“You won’t be lost in Detroit,” he said. “You have a feeling of belonging and it’s not so expensive to live here.”

The downtown Detroit Public Library has several permanent works by Orikri, including large murals. He has completed over 110 cityscapes of Detroit, and is well on his way to covering Lansing’s waterfront nearly as thoroughly.

He discovered Lansing during the administration of former Gov. Rick Snyder, who lived in Ann Arbor while in office, leaving the governor’s mansion in Lansing to be used as a gallery. 

After bringing his art to the mansion or attending an event there, Orikri started taking self-guided tours of the capital city and liked what he saw.

Lansing’s vibrant, home-grown art scene reminded him of Detroit.

“I love communities like this, cool and creative,” he said.

The Knapp’s exhibit began to take form when Orikri was walking down Washington Square, camera in hand, looking for ideas, and walked into Linn & Owen Jewelers, shopping for a gift.

He was sporting a colorful, Detroit-themed COVID mask that caught the eye of store owner Stewart Powell. Orikri told Powell he was an artist and would like to do a show in Lansing. Powell sent him down the street to Cathleen Edgerly, director of Downtown Lansing, Inc., and Mark Clouse, general counsel for the Eyde Co., owners of the Art Deco Knapp’s Centre a block away. 

As Orikri’s Lansing-themed works began to proliferate, he, Clouse and Edgerly masterminded the Knapp’s exhibit.

“They’re my diary,” Orikri said. “They show what I’ve been doing with my brain since March.”

For Orikri, the principle that drives hundreds of hours of thought, planning and hard work is simple.

“Find the beauty around you, then contribute to the creative landscape and become part of it.” He plans to be at the exhibit on weekends. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., to greet visitors.

Support City Pulse  -  Donate Today!