Uli is an expression of the peoples capacity for creative design, which is firmly rooted in their myths and their experience of life in the past, present and future. At its best, it is an expression of their synthetic present, the epic of their search for a new order in the contemporary world. It is my traditional art style, which I have fallen in love with all over again and it is a privilege to share uli with you in my works. It has been shown that the knowledge of uli motifs and symbols and their application enables one to identify the traditional Igbo artifacts, giving validity to the peoples aesthetic intelligence and judgment. This culture is one of the first known cultures of the world in the recorded archeologically facts to have done bronze casting. (Igboukwu bronze).
Uli symbols may be said to show graphically how the organic forms grow outwards from the core of those elements to point, line, triangle, square and circle that are universal to the concentric circle at the periphery, which contains reflections of everyday world as seen by the artists. Just as the inner circle reflects the uncommon reality or ritual reality of the cultural existence, so the outer...