Nigerian artists seek international projection, in a country where two thirds of the population is poor

Paul Oyetunde Ogunlesi puts on his jean overalls, takes one of his brushes, opens a can of blue paint and begins to outline the last of his paintings.

It features lesbian women who are part of his new series Allegories of Shared Memories.

"In these works I explore the concept of gender and the acceptance of people as they are."

Ogunlesi sold her first job seven years ago and with the money she earned, she was able to eat for two weeks.

“That's when I knew it was my thing,” says the 27-year-old artist from his small studio in Ikorodu, east of Lagos, Nigeria.

The barely 56 tiles where he works fit a table with fifty paint cans, two chairs, two notebooks in which he draws in pencil and more than 450 works of art rolled up on canvas that form thick rugs on the floor.

Since that first sale, he has only managed to sell 50 of his works, but he is looking to gain a foothold in the modern and contemporary African art market.

Ogunlesi paints full-length figures, but cuts off their heads.

“He spoke of universal themes such as death, love, hope or faith.

My works do not need faces ”, he claims.

Most people don't come to my studio, they only see my work on social media

Paul Oyetunde Ogunlesi, Nigerian artist

Two of these works have been exhibited between February and March at the New York gallery Harsh Collective, which organized the Tight Knit collective exhibition, in commemoration of Black History Month.

These spaces help give visibility to young artists, but they also generate a worrying Western trend by corseting art from Africa as a separate current that cannot be exhibited alongside others.

This situation makes Ogunlesi uncomfortable, who seeks to be recognized for his work and not for being African.

“My characters in the paintings are not Nigerian, they could be white, but I paint them black.

I aspire to be an artist who generates conversations, not to be labeled African or Nigerian ”, he claims from his studio.

“There are still auctions for African art, which is strange because art is based on period, not geography,” adds Oliver Enwonwu, former director of the Society of Nigerian Artists.

There is no market for art in Nigeria

Ogunlesi drops the brush, picks up his mobile and enters Instagram.

“This is our great opportunity.

Most people don't come to my studio, they only see my work on social networks”, explains the painter, who has more than 8,500 followers on this social network.

His future job, he says, involves selling his paintings to those who follow him on the screen.

In 2021, sales of African art in the world increased by 44% to a record of 67.5 million euros, driven mainly by the rise of young artists, whose value increased by 121% in just one year, according to the ArtTactic Modern & Contemporary African Artist Market Report 2016-2021.

The Nigerian market is oriented towards the foreigner and to a few upper class Nigerians, but not to the social mass of the country.

“My work is not for the average Nigerian, few can appreciate art and connect with it,” says Ogunlesin.

The work of Paul Oyetunde Ogunlesi, who does not paint heads for his characters.

“I talk about universal themes such as death, love, hope or faith.

My works do not need faces”. David Soler

One of the reasons is that art is not a priority in a country where almost two thirds of the population lives below the poverty line, on less than $2.15 a day.

“No matter how good the plays are, it will still be uninteresting to them because they have to put food on their table,” Enwonwu says.

“In the West, electricity or water supply is not a problem.

You cannot tell a man who earns little a month to come see art, ”he adds.

Oliver Enwonwu is the son of Ben Enwonwu, considered the father of Nigerian contemporary art.

In 2018, 24 years after his death, his work

, known as the African Mona Lisa, sold for 1.3 million euros at the British auction house Bonhams.

A year later, he surpassed that figure with

, by the same author, for which he paid 1.4 million euros at a Sotheby's.

Before these two astronomical amounts, in 2017, the value of Nigerian art sales in London alone had been €4.3 million, five times more than in Lagos, according to data from the latest Nigerian Art Market Report.

The lack of local demand makes the market unconnected and unregulated.

“We don't have an art sector as it should be, we have people in the diaspora.

We should have our own appraisers and art spaces built at the correct temperature”, laments Enwonwu.

International galleries promote the work, but not the artists and that is exploitation

Oliver Enwonwu, Omenka Gallery in Lagos

The support initiatives that exist are private, such as the Omenka Gallery that Enwonwu opened in honor of his father in what was the living room of his family home in Lagos to promote young Nigerian artists.

“As a painter I see others with difficulties and I like to help them,” he says.

This February, he has exhibited works by Derek Jahyem Jombo-Ogboi and Olubankole Olabode, whose paintings sell for amounts between 3,800 and 7,500 euros.

Enwonwu criticizes the Nigerian government for not doing its part to grow the sector.

"Art is in the queue, they give more importance to the film industry, which is more visible, which can be seen on television without having to go to a gallery," he says.

Making a living abroad is a difficult task

Even so, making a living abroad is not easy.

Ogunlesin's works have already traveled to Morocco, South Africa and London, but he has not yet left Nigeria.

“Some galleries don't pay you to scroll, they just put up digital images of your paintings,” he explains.

Enwonwu criticizes the Western greed of Western auction houses, as many don't give local artists a chance to shine abroad.

“International galleries promote the work, but not the artists and that is exploitation.

They know that once the artist travels he can make contacts with collectors, and that doesn't interest them, ”he criticizes.

Added to this is the commission.

Ogunlesi signed a contract with the Harsh Collective gallery in New York for which the institution would take 50% of the sale price of his paintings, a rate that he ensures is usual in the market.

The two works on display are priced at US$2,100 (just over 1,900 euros), which means that the artist keeps less than a thousand euros.

When I started to sell more, I understood that my starting price was very, very low.

Matthew Eguavoen, Nigerian artist

The lack of direct contact with the outside world makes it difficult for African artists to put a proper price on their creations in the Western market.

“I have sold works for $2,000, $1,000 and even $800, but I would like to adjust the prices in the future,” says Ogunlesi.

He is now valuing one of his latest works, still unnamed, from his new series

at US$2,950 (2,700 euros).

Despite the difficulties, Ogunlesi knows that success means selling outside the country and the continent.

“Seeing my colleagues doing great things motivates me,” he says.

One of them is his friend Matthew Eguavoen.

His is a case of premature success: in 2021 he sold his first two works to a foreign collector for 16,000 euros and, a year later, the Parisian gallery Afikaris gave him the opportunity to have his first international exhibition.

Oliver Enwonwu, son of Ben Enwonwu, considered the father of contemporary Nigerian art, at his art gallery in Lagos, which he opened in honor of his father, alongside works by Derek Jahyem Jombo-Ogboi and Olubankole Olabode.David Soler

"When I started to sell more, I understood that my initial price was very, very low," he says in a telephone conversation from Paris, where he has returned a year later to exhibit in the same gallery.

An engineer by profession and with no artistic studies, Eguavoen often paints portraits in bright colours, a feature that dominates the work of many contemporary Nigerian artists.

The faces he paints always have the same serious expression.

“Most people are not happy.

Misery is easy to sell.

People buy more and feel more identified with that than with false happiness, ”says the young 28-year-old artist, who is based in Lagos.

Telling local realities to the world

The two artists reflect in their work what they live in their day to day.

“Our experiences shape who we are: what family we were born into, what society we live in, how the economy or the country is doing,” says Eguaoven, whose studio is also located in Lagos.

That local reality also sneaks into Ogunlesi's canvases.

"Security in Nigeria is a lonely mission, you have to look out for yourself and come home soon so nothing happens to you," says the artist from his studio.

Insecurity is the number one concern for Nigerians and almost two in three are afraid to walk in their neighbourhood, according to an Afrobarometer survey.

A year

ago his mobile phone was stolen on the street and he has reflected this in his series of two paintings

.

In each one a boy appears with a cell phone in his hand and includes a small beetle in a circle, a detail that he usually includes in his paintings as a nod to his culture: “In my ethnic group, the Yoruba, the beetle is a symbol of resistance, that you always find your way”.

For artists like Ogunlesi, their path is a plane ticket that takes them, together with their works, to Europe or the United States.

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