Several internationally acclaimed Nigerian visual artists have made a significant impact on the global art landscape, and while some began their careers outside the country, their contributions have helped grow Nigeria’s art scene.
- Toyin Ojih Odutola
Toyin Ojih Odutola is a 40-year-old Nigerian-American contemporary visual artist, known for her vivid multimedia works on paper and in drawing.
While studying at California College of Arts in San Francisco, she presented her first solo show in New York, “(MAPS)” at Jack Shainman Gallery in 2011, and in 2012, she was featured by Forbes in its 2012 list of 30 notable individuals under 30 in the category “Art & Style.”
She has been inducted into the National Academy of Design’s Class of 2019. The lifetime honour appointment acknowledges members’ contributions to the canon and story of American art.
- Ken Nwadiogbu
Ken Nwadiogbu is a Nigerian-born, London-based multidisciplinary artist who works across installation, painting, video art, and sculpture.
Ken transitioned into the art world from civil engineering, first building a reputation through hyperrealistic charcoal portraiture before expanding into a wider conceptual practice. In 2026, he received the ‘Young Generation Art Award’ at Monopol/Degussa in Berlin.
- Peju Alatise
Peju Alatise is a 50-year-old Nigerian poet, writer, visual artist and a fellow at the National Museum of African Art. She began her career in architecture and spent 20 years as a studio artist, starting as a painter and eventually branching into multimedia using beads, cloth, resin, and other materials.
Peju currently works in sculpture, using her art to make statements about social issues while incorporating literature, symbolism, and traditional Yoruba mythology into her work; in 2017, she received the 2017 FNB Art Prize at the launch of the 10th instalment of the FNB Joburg Art Fair.
- Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye
Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye, popularly known as ‘Nike Okundaye,’ ‘Nike Twins Seven Seven,’ or ‘Nike Olaniyi,’ is a 75-year-old Nigerian artist and textile designer.
Best known for her clothwork and embroidery, Nike has led workshops on traditional Nigerian textiles for audiences in the United States and Europe for the past 20 years.
She was included in the 2019 show I Am… Contemporary Women Artists of Africa at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D C, and was conferred an honorary doctorate by Rhodes University during its annual graduation ceremonies. In 2024, she received the U.S. Exchange Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award to recognise her significant contributions to the arts and the longstanding cultural relationship between the U.S. and Nigeria.
- Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley is a 49-year-old Nigerian-American portrait painter known for his naturalistic paintings of Black subjects that reference ‘Old Master Paintings.’
In 2017, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Wiley to paint a portrait of former U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2023 and 2024, his work, ‘An Archaeology of Silence,’ was exhibited at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas.
- Yinka Shonibare
Yinka Shonibare is a Nigerian-British artist whose work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. Known for his brightly coloured Ankara-Batik fabric, Yinka is a world-renowned artist with disabilities.
On 3 December 2016, one of Shonibare’s Wind Sculpture pieces was installed in front of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC. The painted fibreglass work, titled Wind Sculpture VII, is the first sculpture permanently installed outside the NMAA entrance. In 2019, Shonibare received an MBE and a CBE, and in 2022, he was named Artist of the Year by the Princess Estelle Cultural Foundation and commissioned to create ‘Wind Sculpture in Bronze I’ for the Princess Estelle Sculpture Park in Stockholm, Sweden.
- Anthony Azekwoh
Anthony Azekwoh is a 26-year-old multidisciplinary visual artist known for combining classical painting styles with digital media to create bold pieces. His storytelling skills are evident in his most viral artwork titled “The Wedding.” Anthony is also recognised for his painting of Adekunle Gold, which also went viral.
He has been described as “one of the most visible digital artists on the continent” and is known for his viral 2020 artwork, The Red Man, which sold as an NFT for $25,000. His commercial clients include Meta, which featured his artwork in an NFT gallery as part of the #FlexNaija mixed reality initiative in Nigeria in 2022.
Anthony’s 2023 exhibition, “There Is a Country”, Toured Lagos, Abuja, London, and New York. The exhibition explored Nigeria’s history and trauma through portraiture and layered symbolism.
- Olaolu Slawn
Olaolu Slawn, professionally known as “Slawn,” is a 26-year-old former Lagos skateboarder turned artist. Slawn is known for his graffiti-style art and his controversial vibrant canvases that sell for thousands of dollars. He is internationally recognised and has collaborated with brands like Rolex and Formula 1.
In 2023, he became the youngest person to design the Britannia statuette for the annual BRIT Awards. For his first major London exhibition, Slawn collaborated with gallerists Phoebe Saatchi and Arthur Yates to create I present to you, Slawn, at Saatchi Yates Gallery, Bury Street (Sept. 12–Oct. 20, 2024). The show’s centrepiece was a mural composed of 1,000 small canvases, each priced at £1,000. All of them sold out during the exhibition.
- Nnenna Okore
Nnenna Okore is a 50-year-old Nigerian artist, inspired by richly textured forms and colours in the natural environment.
She uses flotsam and discarded objects to create intricate sculptures and installations through repetitive, labour-intensive processes.
Her work has been shown in galleries and museums within and outside of the United States, and it has won several awards, including a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2012 and the Australian Creative Victoria Award in 2021. Nnenna uses her eco-centred art practice to foster learning, artistic experience, and ecological awareness.
- Otobong Nkanga
Otobong Nkanga is a 51-year-old Nigerian tapestry maker, performance artist and visual artist based in Antwerp, Belgium.
She began her career as an artist in the 90s, and her first exhibition, Classicism & Beyond, took place in 2002 in the non-profit organisation Project Row Houses in Houston. From 2007 to 2008, in response to American artist Allan Kaprow’s work Baggage (1972-2007/2008), Nkanga designed a performance for the Kunsthalle Bern. In 2025, Otobong was awarded the Nasher Prize.
