The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will display a new exhibit titled Ibo Landing, featuring an exclusive series of larger-than-life charcoal drawings by Jamaican-American artist, Donovan Nelson. The exhibit, with support from the United Nations Outreach Programme on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery, is being staged in observance of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (March 25, 2024). The exhibit also helps to commemorate the final year of the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024).
The Ibo, also referred to as Igbo, are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. In 1803, a group of captives from this region committed one of history’s most storied and tragic acts of resistance in defiance of enslavement. As part of a deadly revolt, they chose to trust the spirit of the water over a life in captivity. These masterful works by Donovan Nelson capture both the sorrow and triumph of this historic encounter that took place at Dunbar Creek, in the state of Georgia.
Amid his many responsibilities as a commissioned and exhibiting portrait artist, educator, husband and father, Nelson has remained committed to telling this story through his art, completing 50 meticulous works in total with more proposed. “I am driven by epic memory and a deepened sense of duty to use my gift as an artist to highlight this historical event that pays respect to the ancestors whose shoulders we stand on,” shared the artist about this series, which has unfolded over several years.
Nelson’s Ibo series emanated at The Valentine Museum of Art and progressed with support of Welancora Gallery, both in Brooklyn, NY. One work debuted prominently at CHRISTIE’S in 2022 in an exhibition and auction presented by Investor’s Bank in support of City College Center for the Arts. That work, Ibo landing #5, has returned to the market, along with eight other renderings from the series and one large-format painting, to be exhibited at the United Nations.
Although the drawings have been seldom seen in public, until now, academics and cultural institutions have sought the work out to bring life to research and findings on American history, the Ibo, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. As a result, Nelson’s drawings have appeared in numerous books, journals, and articles on slavery and were most recently featured in the Netflix series, “Stamped From the Beginning” and on the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s website. Organizers at the UN have been among the followers and champions of this extraordinary work since at least 2019.
Donovan Nelson was born in Manchester, Jamaica, WI and relocated to the U.S. in 1982. He received a B.F.A in illustration from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA and additionally studied portraiture and figure painting at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before going on to earn his M.F.A. from the New York Academy. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
The Ibo Landing exhibition opens on March 25th with a reception and presentation in the exhibition space near the Vienna Café at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
