AAF NYC Fall 2024

Tosin Toromade

Tosin Tòròmade was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and began drawing at a young age, delighting anyone who came into contact with his creative talents. His love in art led him to seek a degree in Fine and Applied Arts. He received his bachelor's degree with honors from Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

He is a seasoned professional artist, a multidimensional art guru, and a teacher who has chosen to express himself using new media such as photography, digital art, and most recently filmmaking, rather than traditional painting and drawing approaches.

He joined the Tender Arts Foundation as an Arts in Medicine fellow in 2019. His art therapy expertise and experience have also aided him in contributing to the therapeutic wellbeing of patients in a number of Nigerian public and private institutions.

He has carved a space for himself as a portrait and figurative artist with numerous successful group art exhibits and a solo exhibition. Through a blend of symbolism, texture, and iconography, he aims to represent the shape, mind, mood, and expression of humanity, as well as the problems that come with existence and survival in Africa.

He is now researching visual art as a means of inspiration for everyone.

Tòrò, as he is affectionately known, is continuously seeking for new ways to capture events and make art through constant investigation of alternative creative materials such as charcoal and coffee.

Passionate art enthusiasts, collectors, and galleries have taken up residence in his works.

Tosin Toromade is based in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, where he also works on his art.

Toju Clarke

Toju Clarke is a visual artist living and working in Lagos. He studied graphic design at the Yaba College of Technology. He makes graphic art and sgraffito paintings, a technique of painting that involves scratching on canvas.

His works, often large paintings of human busts, examine moods and mental states. Their power lies in how they keep us ruminating on states of mind that we otherwise may not want to ponder on. Joy, anguish, masculinity, and intensity are deftly portrayed. The focus on the human face and bust in his paintings create a hallowed space for human presence and expression.

Abdulwaduud Afolabi

Abdulwaduud Afolabi (b. 1995) is a cross-disciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria, extending his expertise beyond the canvas into the realms of art and the creative industry. Popularly known by his pseudonym Mr. Waduud, he has seamlessly evolved into a connoisseur of art and a voice of reason within the contemporary creative community.

He manages an Instagram page with over 100,000 followers, where he curates content to promote art and encourage its exploration among fellow creatives — generating thought-provoking content that fosters a mindset shift for artists and the wider design community.

Abdulwaduud's fervor for art and storytelling manifests in conceptual works on walls, canvases, and floors, employing mediums from acrylic and oil to spray paint, charcoal, and chalk. Heralded as a sought-after muralist, painter, calligrapher, and content creator, he has honed a unique style blending dramatic portraiture, minimalism, and pop colors.

He has undertaken large-scale projects for corporations including APM Terminal, Accelerex, Vesti, and Pepsi, as well as the Lagos State Government's PEACE PARK murals — a peaceful appeal following the #EndSARS protests. His work has appeared on the Art Express Show and Wake Up Nigeria Show on TVC, Art House on Channels TV, and News Central Africa, and was exhibited at Thought Pyramid's "Undiscovered" group show in Abuja, 2023.

Abdulwaduud is deeply rooted in Yoruba culture, drawing inspiration from the Aso-Oke weaving process of his people — a memory that grounds him in the belief that beautiful things take time to create. He is based in Lagos, with an expanded studio in Ife.

Eva Obodo

Eva Obodo is a Nigerian visual artist who focuses on fibre and charcoal as conceptual mediums, creating relief paintings and free-standing sculptures configured through processes of wrapping, tying, and sewing. Using cloth and jute fibre, and incorporating refined natural mineral resources such as copper and aluminium into charcoal, Obodo creates visual narratives that evoke the complex socio-political and economic structures framing contemporary culture.

His childhood as the son of a coal miner who worked with the Nigerian Coal Corporation in the 1940s and 50s in remote Eastern Nigeria informed the theoretical and practical backbone of his studio practice. His charcoal works reference issues of exploitation tied to the extraction of natural resources, while his fibre works use nylon threads to tie rolled, sewn, and wrapped jute fabrics into colourful visual metaphors — together speaking to the connections between individuals and their social relations, woven against economic and political backgrounds.

Obodo has held several solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows, fairs, and biennales, including the Osaka Triennale (2001, Japan) and the Dak'Art Biennale (2002, Senegal). He took part in the first African Regional Summit and Exhibition on Visual Arts (ARESUVA) in Abuja in 2008, and served as an adjudicator for the Life in My City Art Festival Grand Finale in 2012. He was an invited observer at ART X Lagos 2017, participated in the group exhibition "Ce que nous donne la terre" in Paris, and has exhibited at the 1-54 Art Fair in Marrakech. He is a recipient of the 2013 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Award.

He holds an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he is presently Professor of Fine Art, teaching sculpture and art education.