Reflections of society in art: Contributions of michael soi's politics paintings to socio-political debates in africa

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to extend scholarly reading of the contributions of Michael Soi's politics paintings to social debates as a means of deepening our understanding of the complex relationship between art and politics. Thus, this study assesses relevant variables indicating how Soi's selected paintings are effectively his means of projecting his views about his experiences, expectations, dreams, fears and reservations concerning his society's socio-political realities. In an attempt at analyzing the functionality and aesthetic significances of Soi's paintings, this study discusses relevant perspectives from individuals on politics paintings particularly how they can propel meaningful debates. Therefore, to gather relevant information on people's responses to this kind of painting, we utilized viewer response approach and follow-up interviews. More so, we applied interpretive analysis in assessing the paintings (as metaphors depicting social realities), the collated responses (as means of espousing more on the concepts of cognitive process mechanisms), and relevant literature (as a means of assessing the trajectories of scholarly views on this subject). In the end, we observe that Soi's politics paintings are efficacious medium of communication and that each individual viewer of these paintings produces responses that are similar or dissimilar but not exact because their subsisting ideological, political and philosophical inclinations are not exactly the same.