Adegboyega Adesina is a Nigerian painter based in Lagos. The artist started making imaginative drawings out of everything during his childhood, including his school learnings. His love for experimenting with new drawing styles and mediums shaped his illustrations and brought together his current signature portrait paintings.

The distinguished artworks of the painter are the products of his reality and imagination coexisting. He is influenced by his day-to-day encounters with people and the happenings around him or around the world which shape his thoughts and present themselves in his paintings. He tends to stretch himself artistically to influence the younger generations and emphasize that there is no limit to exploration and growth.

Adesina’s paintings are tools to showcase the culture, the history, the political aspects and the personal belonging to his homeland Nigeria. His portraits of black subjects reflect a sense of strong personality through the artist’s choice of rich colours. Although silently, these subjects establish a loud dialogue with the viewer, the pride and the stance of people resound inevitably through the artist’s canvases. Adesina describes his relationship with his paintings as therapeutic, as his artworks implicitly contain the thoughts and the feelings he has experienced.

Fresh from his time at The Breeder Open Studio in Athens, Adesina’s works “The Scuba Diver” and “Masiri And The Little Birds” of his project titled “In This Space For Two” are intended to generate conversations around the politics of shared spaces through portraying examples of the dominance of humanity over nature, and how human converts the existing habitat on their own interest forcing all other forms to comply.

You can follow Adegboyega Adesina’s Instagram @adegboyegaadesina_ to discover more about the artist and his portraits. Don’t forget to share your views with us in our comment section below!

About Adegboyega Adesina

Adegboyega Adesina was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria in 1998. A student of Human Physiology department of Federal University of Technology Akure, Adesina’s realistic portraits are thanks to his good knowledge on human anatomy.

The artist’s paintings were a part of the group exhibition “Black Voices: Friend Of My Mind” at Ross-Sutton Gallery in New York City in 2020. In 2021, he participated in the group exhibition “Stop, listen!” at CFHILL Art Space in Stockholm, and in the group exhibition “Black Excellence/Black Elegance” at Ross-Sutton Gallery’s gallery space in Florida. The painter completed his participation at The Breeder Open Studio in Athens in 2022 spring, creating new artworks to enhance his techniques and expressions. His latest showcase was at “1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair” in London and in Paris.