About Exhibition

12 December 2021 - 26 December 2021

Every person is a half-open door leading to a room for everyone, writes Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer in his poem “The Half-Finished Heaven”. Inside all of us are rooms, rooms so vast they can hold everyone. And we possess doors that open into these rooms. An exhibition is an outward expression of the rooms within the artist, a room of all she in tends to show us.

A Room with All Our Things, a group exhibition by five artists – Toju Clarke, Abisola Gbadamosi, Tolulope Daramola, Paul Ayihawu, Samuel Vittu -brings us into a room of this sort, one filled with deeply affecting things.

E-Catalog

Abisola Gbadamosi

Abisola is a narrative expressionist and nature lover. She is originally from Ibadan, Oyo state, but grew up in Lagos and London. Abisola started experimenting with different mediums from an early age. Her ability to create stem from life experiences and lessons, which she now expresses through her art in hopes to create a cathartic experience for her audience.

After her first exhibition in London at the brick Lane gallery, in 2016, Abisola made an active decision to be an Art Teaching Assistant at her alma mater, British International School, Lagos. She shared her truth, past, and creative process, with the hope of giving the kids a piece of what her teacher gave her then in 2008. By doing so, Abisola finally understood the quote of Pablo Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up.” It was in that moment she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life; To create art that people could relate to, art that people could inspire, art that would make people feel that same euphoria she felt when she was a little girl.

Toju Clarke

Toju Clarke is a Nigerian Sgrafitto and Digital artist. His search for a unique language of expression makes him explore art, traditionally, by scratching on canvas, and digitally over the past few years.
A graduate of Yaba College of Technology, majoring in Graphic design, his knack for arts has led him to become a top finalist at Nigerian Student Art Contest (NSAC) in 2018, Art Director for TRIBE-FEST in 2018, the Best Graphic/Digital Art at Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) in 2019 and 3x3x3 Artist residency in 2020. He is an Alumni of Next Economy/Fate Foundation and a member of The Executive Helping Initiative.

He has spoken words about his art through a host of media houses including platforms like Unilag fm, Silverbird, Television Continental (TVC), Channels TV’s Art House. He looks forward to creating awareness on issues that affect humans through his works. He hopes his art inspires people to take a leap, like he does every time he applies needles and hands in scratching technique.

Samuel Vittu

Samuel believes that the face is laced with diverse stories. His work constantly interrogates the exterior of the face as an entry point into larger issues in the society with the use of acrylic, oil and charcoal. He fuses portraiture with anthropomorphism, employing bulgy eyes as windows and zoom lens into the happenings, experiences, thoughts, and crisis that goes on in the mind of his subjects.

Samuel comes from a family where an uncle had studied art, and given him the basic and formidable training during his formative (artistic) years. Those years could be described as one of concerted exposition. As a trained painter and art educator, he holds a Nigerian Certificate in Education from Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education as well as a Bachelor of Art Education in painting from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
As a practicing artist, Samuel works chiefly across painting and drawing. Working with charcoal, oil, acrylic and canvas has been his chosen media to register and visualize his inspiration, ideas and imaginations. The resulting artworks from his usually mixed-media experimentations are figuratively conceptual, suggestive, evocative and formalistic.

Samuel has participated in exhibitions such as Life In My City, Lagos zone, at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in (2013), he was also a participating artist in the (2019) group exhibition tagged DREAM at Vivid exclusive art gallery. In (2021). He was part of the exhibiting artists at the Refrigerator poetry online exhibition, On Display, Wielding power at Landmark Gallery, (2021).

Paul Ayihawu

Paul is a Nigerian-based contemporary artist uses charcoal and acrylic to tell the story of Africa in a new light. His work focuses more on the social-cultural issues and the impact of colonialism on African cultures and values. He expressed this often with flipped portraits of black people dressed in a hybrid of western and African dresses.

He is fervent about telling the untold, unheard and silent stories of the black community. His works are in private collections in USA, South Africa and Nigeria.

Tolulope Daramola

Daramola is a self-taught contemporary artist whose work evokes deep emotions, questions of identity and Skin pigmentation via the essence of the human physical features. Being of Yoruba heritage from the western part of Nigeria (a people whose expression of feelings are etched in Ostentatious cultural lifestyles), Daramola celebrates the people’s arts and their way of life. The people’s way of life sometimes affirm Joy, for example, in Owanbe a form of celebration of life, achievements and other feats by wearing colourful attires, whining and dinning together as happy people.

Daramola celebrates his background by the use of carefully picked subtle colours inherent in his works. Speaking of colours, this is the ideal segue into the red hue on black skin conversation in his works, as it spells the uniqueness in the identification of a valuable sentiments. sometimes, it’s about anger against white supremacist and racism. Also its a reminder that a good mental exhaustion could have history rewritten through his visual story telling.

He seeks a full-cycle of life unfolding in stages on his canvas; childhood, adulthood, and the transition of self awareness, through The striking poses and the looks of his subjects.Be it an Omg! Wow! C’est tres bien! exclaimed when people see his paintings, he is fulfilled that his works find expression, he says.