International Women’s Day: Celebrating top Nigerian female visual artists

The International Women’s Day (IWD), is here again. The global day, which is marked on March 8th of every year, celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women across the world.

So, on Wednesday March 8, 2023, the world will celebrate women across the globe and their achievements, as well as, reflect on their challenges. Bearing in mind the many challenges women face even today, especially inequality, the International Women’s Day 2023 is themed; ‘DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality’, as gender equality and empowerment remain priority for the world.

To drive home the essence of IWD 2023 in Nigeria, below are some top Nigerian female visual artists who have and are still impacting lives through their works.

Some of the artists are:

Peju Alatise

Alatise is a mixed-medium artist in her own right, a poet and published writer, whose interdisciplinary work has garnered attention on the global art stage. She was selected as the 2016 fellow at the Smithsonian Institute of African Art and was 2017 recipient of the highly coveted FNB Art Prize, a prize that made her join the ranks of previous winners such as Nolan Oswald Dennis, Turiya Magadlela, Portia Zvavahera and Kudzanai Chiurai.

With the FNB Art Prize, Alatise had the opportunity to create new projects that were showcased in dedicated exhibition spaces across Africa.

Of course, the works of the sculptor who was also among the three artists that represented Nigeria at Venice Art Biennale in Italy in 2017 are worth seeing. Alatise, who also put up a good show for the country at the biggest global art event has gone beyond mere sculpture to exerting some level of socio-cultural influence with her work and even personality.

Again, the female artist is offering her works in private and institutional collections around the world more than ever before. As well, her passion about addressing social, political and gender-related issues as her primary subject matter, through artistic work that also captures the joys and pain of womanhood in modern-life-African traditions makes her work a must-see.

All these offer Alatise a place among top female African artists that are worth celebrating in this year’s International Women’s Day.

Nike Davies-Okundaye

Probably, one of the biggest names in African visual art, Nike Davies-Okundaye is a household name in the African arts landscape. She is one of the internationally acclaimed female artists from Nigeria, who has made astounding strides in textile, visual arts and mixed media painting in the global arts scene. An Amazon in her own right, Nike is the woman behind the Nike Art Empire with galleries, art shops and training centres across Nigeria and the world.

There is hardly any important museum in the world that does not have Madam Nike’s work. She is an artist of many parts – she drums, directs plays, dances, paints, and trains young adults to do all of the listed.

Nengi Omuku

Born 1987 in Delta State, Nigeria, Nengi Omuku’s paintings feature amorphous presences that float through ‘active’ or loaded spaces. Her work functions as a metaphor, alluding to wider themes of identity, mental journeying and mutual belonging. Omuku’s colour palette acts as a subtext for transforming the human figure.

Her recent exhibitions include; At Work, Arthouse Foundation (2018) Stages of Collapse, September Gray Art Gallery, Atlanta (2017), the Armory Show Focus: African Perspectives, New York City (2016), A State of Mind, Omenka Gallery, Lagos (2015) and Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014, Jerwood Gallery, London (2014). She is the recipient of several awards including the British Council CHOGM Art Award, presented by HRH Queen Elisabeth II. Her work has been shown at international art fairs including ArtXLagos, 1.54 London, and the Armory Show in New York.

Taiye Idahor

Taiye Idahor grew up in Lagos. She studied Fine Art at the Prestigious Yaba College of Technology Lagos Nigeria where she graduated in 2007 with a Higher National Diploma (HND) after specialising in sculpture at the college.

In the last few years Taiye Idahor has worked significantly within the concept of identity and women using hair as a visual language. Tangled through the issues of trade, beauty, the environment and globalisation, she examines how these factors build the woman’s identity in today’s Africa but in particular Lagos, Nigeria where she has lived all her life. She has participated in a number of exhibitions and workshops both at home and abroad including Nigeria our Nigeria, Presidential Inauguration Exhibition Abuja Nigeria 2011; the specially curated at the Dubai Art Fair, Marker 2013; her first solo exhibition “Hairvolution” in Lagos Nigeria 2014 and Timeline, a residency exhibition in Johannesburg South Africa 2015. Taiye Idahor also works part time with the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos Nigeria as project coordinator and curatorial assistant.

Modupe Fadugba

Modupeola Fadugba was born in 1985 in Lomé, Togo, but lives and works in Abuja. She is a multi-media artist working in painting, drawing, and socially-engaged installation. With a background in engineering, economics, and education, she works at the nexus of science, politics, and art. Fadugba works in series addressing cultural identity, social justice, game theory, and the art world within the socio-political landscape of Nigeria and the greater global economy.

Fadugba holds a BEng Chemical Engineering / MA Economics (University of Delaware) and MEd (Harvard University), yet she is fast mastering art, her passion. Recent solo exhibitions include Prayers, Players & Swimmers (Cité des Arts, Paris, 2017) and Synchronised Swimming & Drowning (London, 2017). Selected group exhibitions include; The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy, London, 2017); Afriques Capitales (Gare Saint Sauveur, Lille, 2017); Dakar Biennale (Senegal, 2016); The Art Energy (London, 2015); and Design is the Personality of an Idea (Ford Foundation & African Artists Foundation, Lagos, 2015).

Queen Nwaneri-Olatunde

Queen Nwaneri-Olatunde was born in 1993 in Rome, Italy. She attended Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, where she obtained a Diploma in Fine and Applied Art in 2012.

She is reputed for her unabashed expressions in which rich texture of colours give vent to her subject, oftentimes in a manner that escapes conventional exactitudes. As a portraitist, she draws her themes from the mood of her subjects (women and children) as she situates them in discourses; also allowing for spatial escape (as opposed to closed finish) this opens up extensive suggestions about her artistic concerns.

She has participated in several group themed exhibitions, her most recent participation at the International art fair, Art X Lagos. She is also represented in North America, by Cuverley LLC, an art management firm based in Atlanta, USA.

Nyancho NwaNri

Nyancho NwaNri is a Gambian-Nigerian filmmaker and photographer born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1988 whose work revolves around African history, culture, languages, spirituality and ethnic identity.

She graduated in 2012 with an Honours degree in Digital Animation from the University of Greenwich, UK. She is a self-taught filmmaker and photographer who started her career at Disney’s ESPN and has since worked in the Film and TV industry in the United Kingdom and across West Africa.

Her works have been exhibited at various festivals locally and regionally including Chale Wote Festival, Ndiva Women’s Film Festival (Ghana), and the Lagos Photo Festival & Tamerri Festival (Nigeria).

She has also taken part in several group exhibitions in Nigeria. Nyancho NwaNri was the curator of the photography exhibition at the inaugural edition of Tamerri Festival- a first of its kind arts and culture festival in Nigeria, and is also an accredited Canon film and photography trainer under the Canon Miraisha Programme, conducting trainings and workshops across Africa.