Above: Laolu Otiko, artist and curator | Photo credit: Laolu Otiko
Nigerian artist Laolu Otiko has been making art since childhood. He began with comic book sketches—never published but full of promise—and he seemed destined to have a professional career as an artist. Ironically, he shelved all plans to study and practice art. Instead, he studied economics in college. “I planned to have a professional career in something related to finance, get the money up, and transition at a later point in life,” he said. However, he never felt fulfilled by this choice.
Everything changed in college when he was commissioned to make a portrait for a fellow student. “I experienced the most joy I had felt in my four years at school,” he affirmed. This strengthened his decision to drop out of school and become a full-time artist.
Laolu officially began his art journey by taking on commissions. His primary medium was pencil sketching, for which he earned a diploma after dropping out of college. Later on, he taught himself digital illustration using Photoshop and Sketchbook. He also learned painting on his own. “Over time, I created work that was for me, finding my preferred style and myself in the process,” he said. Faces/Phases of a Solo Sojourner features art pieces across all of these mediums, including some that he made ten years ago. It is a collection of the phases he has encountered in life, from the past up to the present.
Laolu is interested in the place of man in the universe, the interconnectedness of things, and how the mundane deserves the same spot as the spectacular. This is reflected in his art, as he’d “like visitors to feel like they’re a part of the pieces they see. I want them to know their normal lives and activities are as important to the universe as the stars that exist.”
As the curator of his own exhibition, Laolu gets to infuse personal touches in the story delivery. This exhibition is a visual representation of his evolution as a person and from an amateur to a professional artist. On speaking about the title, Laolu states that it “perfectly describes the phases I’ve gone through over the last decade, and all the faces I’ve worn in that period, from artist to curator to art director, from a boy to a man.”
Faces/Phases of a Solo Sojourner is Laolu Otiko’s curatorial debut. This exhibition also marks the first major production by House of Apollo, a contemporary art and creative company focused on showcasing artists, which he co-founded in Lagos, Nigeria last year.
Faces/Phases of a Solo Sojourner is set to show at the Lagos Oriental Hotel on Sept. 5 from 10:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
