Designer and architect, Adedapo Paul Akintunde is the newest creative professional in The Art Pantheon’s space, showing Autovista: African Vehicle Visions, an exhibition of car and concept designs. The exhibition runs from March 27-April 10, 2022 at The Art Pantheon, 12D, Bosun Adekoya Street, Oniru, Lagos.
Art Pantheon assured that the exhibition offers drawings and designs to chart a broader vision for the automotive and creative industries in Nigeria. Nana Sonoiki, director at The Art Pantheon, explained that Autovista is a truly unique exhibition in Nigeria’s history, creating a space to engage with art as a catalyst for technological advancement and national progress.
Akintunde described his style as full of dynamism.
“My designs look like things already in motion noting that and this propulsive mindset is what drives Autovista; the movement is forwards”, Akintunde said.
Sonoiki explained further that in the vision of the future, the designs in Autovista are informed by the here and now. It is just as Akintunde said: “I am making cars for here; cars that work for Africa.”
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Akintunde’s versatility across art and design oozes in his works that traverse the medium of painting on canvas and paper works of watercolour. Among such pieces of works on display are; Circa (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 51x20cm); Trika 2, (ink and watercolour on paper, 2020, 28 x 41 cm); Regional Character (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 41 x 61 cm); Green Revolution (acrylic on canvas, 2019, 51 x 120cm); and Colourway On the Highway (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 41 x 61 cm).
In the catalogue of the exhibition, Joseph Omoh Ndukwu tracked the progression of automotive technology in Nigeria: “It has been a long road building the automotive industry in Nigeria, and still more has to be done. Beginning in the 50s, Nigeria started to have cars assembled in the country. Starting with companies like the Federated Motors Industries and SCOA Nigeria Plc., Nigeria had operational assembly lines manufacturing Bedford TJ trucks and Peugeot pickup trucks. Production improved in the 70s with Volkswagen and Leyland becoming more dominant in the market. In the 80s, however, things started to take a dip due to economic downturns.”
On the exhibiting designer, Ndukwu said dynamism, movement, propulsion and advancement are words that inform the style and consciousness behind the works in Autovista: African Vehicle Visions. Ndukwu quoted the designer saying: “All my works have about them a certain dynamism; they look like things already in motion.”
Speaking further, Ndukwu disclosed that, “A propulsive mindset, quite simply, is driven by an ethos that is interested, more than anything, in moving things from where they are to where they ought to be.
“The movement is forwards, but it is forward-moving in a way that is mindful of the present. The designer that would be relevant in the future, that would hope to keep his place, must engage rigorously with the world as he currently knows it.
“It is why Akintunde’s statement “I am making cars for here,” made in the same Netflix interview, caught me as noteworthy. It has an implied yet powerfully audible “now”. Even as the future is in view, the present is continually engaged.”
