Artist statement
My work investigates transformation as an ongoing, cyclical process where human, botanical, and organic forms merge. Figures fold into vegetal structures, organs dissolve into roots, and growth and decay coexist. Rather than presenting metamorphosis as linear, my work frames it as perpetually in motion, revealing collapse as generative and fragility as a site of possibility.
Growing up tending banana plants and animals in Abeokuta, Nigeria, I became fascinated by cycles of life, decay, and regeneration patterns that now underpin both my material and conceptual practice. I transform banana fiber and jute into layered grounds for paintings, creating tactile surfaces that embody the interplay of resilience and vulnerability. Sweeping gestures, sinewy mark-making, and dense layering echo natural processes blooming, erosion, decomposition while inviting viewers to inhabit a space where abstraction and figuration, beauty and discomfort, intersect.
Bodies and environments in my work are porous, entangled, and hybrid, reflecting ecological and psychological states simultaneously. Limbs, faces, and root-like forms surface and dissolve, destabilizing perception and opening a space for reflection. Organic structures fold, rupture, and regenerate; the chrysalis becomes both wound and promise, a site where collapse and emergence coexist. Decay is not an end state but an active force that seeds new possibilities.
Through layered surfaces and material density, my paintings hold tension between vulnerability and resilience, inviting viewers to reconsider transformation not as a singular event, but as a continuous condition one that binds human experience to broader cycles of life, death, and regeneration.
Resume
Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria
Lives and works in Chicago, USA
EDUCATION
2026
MFA Painting and Drawing, School of the Art institute of Chicago, IL, USA
2019
BA. (Ed.) Fine and Applied Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ace, Nigeria
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025
More than Meets the Eyes, Rath Museum, Geneva Switzerland
SoHo house Chicago “I am not Clay” curated by Cheryl pope
Gift of the Soil, Mitochodria Gallery, Texas, USA
2024
Artsy Foundation, Jane Trady Galley, London, England
2023
Times Are Changing, Gr Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Tell the Present World, Galerie Chauvy, Paris, France
2022
1-54 Contemporary Art Fair Paris, African Arty Gallery, Paris, France
Engaging Spaces and Metaphors as Memories, PacaDakar Biennale, Senegal
Les < Voix > Du Textile, Gallery Chauvy, Paris, France
Traverses Africanizes, Gallery Chauvy Paris, France
Also known as Africa (AKAA) Fair Paris, Gallery Chauvy, Paris, France
African Arty gallery Art X lagos
2021
Rele Young contemporary, Rele Art Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
Tales of Shared Experiences, Lagos, Nigeria
2020
Rele Art Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
2019
Life in My City, Thought Pyramid Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
Can You Hear Me? Turkey
Impart Art Fair, Lagos, Nigeria
2018
Coming Out, Ibadan, Nigeria
Less is More, Life in My City, Lagos, Nigeria
2017
The Convergence, Ibadan, Nigeria
RESIDENCIES
2026
Massachussets Museum of Contemporary Art [MASSMOCA]
2023
Lafourchete de Roze, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
2021
PACA, Dakar Biennial off, Senegal
2021
Rele Young Contemporaries, Lagos, Nigeria.
GRANT AND AWARDS
2025
The Roger Brown Award School of the Art institute of Chicago, IL, USA
2024
New Artist Fellowship Award School of the Art institute of Chicago,IL, USA
The Deans Grant School of the Art institute of Chicago, IL, USA
Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant Award, Montreal, Canada
2023
Visionary Scholar Award, School of Art institute of Chicago, IL, USA
2021
El Anatsui LIMCAF Grant Award Dakar Biennial, Senegal
2020
Tilga Art fund Rele art gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
2019
1st prize Life in my City Art Festival, LIMCAF, Nigeria
COLLECTION
CBH Bank Switzerland
PRESS RELEASE
FORBES Magazine Lee Sharrock, “A Century of African Art Celebrated at Geneva’s
Musée Rath,”, November 3, 2025.
FAD Magazine, More Than Meets the Eye at Musée Rath, Geneva, 2025.
CULTURALEE Interview with Jean-Yves Marin on More than Meets the Eye, 2025
CANVAS REBEL Magazine, October 21 2025.
VOGUE Magazine, Lafourchete de Roze, Alice Kemp-Habib, April 7, 2023
YAHOO, Lafourchete de Roze, Rafael Pena, April 29, 2023
JUXTAPOZ Magazine Art and Culture, Times are Changing, March 1, 2023
AKAA MESSE, 2022, Handelsblatt, Dusseldorf, October 22, Susanne
SCHREIBER AKAA 2022, C and Contemporary And, October 2022
GUARDIAN ART, Life in my City, Gregory Austin Nwakunor, The Guardian 2019
VANGUARD, Life in My City, December 8, 2019
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2025
Teaching Assistant, World Culture and Pre historic Art SAIC IL
ATSP Studio – Edwardo Kac – SAIC IL
Teaching assistant, Survey of Modern and contemporary Art, SAIC, IL, USA
Peer Advisor Career and Professional Practices SAIC, IL, USA
2024
Teaching Assistant, Painting and Drawing Department, SAIC, IL, USA
2022
Teaching Assistant Advanced Drawing Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Teaching Assistant sculpture department, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
2018
Cultural and creative Art Teacher Saint Ambrose College, Nigeria