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Celebrating Visual Art Around the Original.

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ARTROAD – Festival | ORIA-FEST 2026: From October Rain to Beyond Borders – The Faith of Our Fathers

When the Society of Nigerian Artists, Lagos State Chapter, began its October Rain initiative, it was rooted in the familiar format of an annual visual art exhibition. Over the years, however, October Rain has grown into something larger, a platform for celebrating artists, preserving artistic legacies, recognising contributions to the Nigerian art ecosystem and creating opportunities for artists and the public to engage and see beyond borders. ORIA – FEST 2026 by Society of Nigerian Artists opens at J.K. Randle Center on the 18th of October and ends 24th of October 2026.

Words and Interview Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs courtesy Prince Kolawole Olojo – Kosoko

It was an emotional scene still to behold when the executive members of Society of Nigerian Artists, Lagos State Chapter, led by the current Chairman of the association, Prince Kolawole Olojo – Kosoko paid a courtesy visit and tribute to one of the founding members, fathers and the first Chairman of SNA Lagos Chapter. The group of artists wisdom of paying homage to the ones that paved the way and nurture the path for others who came behind them to grow will remain a legacy to pass down from generation to generation.

If anyone had ever visited the SNA Lagos Chapter social media platform such as their official Facebook, one would appreciate the essence of documentation and what Prince Kolawole Olojo – Kosoko led team has done with their stewardship, to steer the association of creative minds to masterpiece podium that they belong. Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/10/09/artroad-festival-oria-fest-2026-from-october-rain-to-beyond-borders-the-faith-of-our-fathers/ by @ibandmagazine

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7 days ago

by @ibandmagazine

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8 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | Let the Children Come Unto Me : The Day Nduka Obaigbena Walked into Omolayo Gallery – Young at Art Children’s Creative Workshop 2026 in Photographs

If you ask Biodun Omolayo, the revered painter, author and founder of Omolayo Gallery, about his biggest achievement, the dapper artist would not hesitate to tell you that the success stories of the Young at Art Children’s Workshop come first. The project, designed for children, is so dear to him.

This year, 2026, Biodun will tell you he is just warming up. Just as Larry King’ s promotional clip for the ace broadcaster’s Larry King Live, “With over 40,000 interviews, I am just warming up.” Yet, there was a period when the workshop caught the attention of a media behemoth and Young at Art Children’s Workshop got a front page editorial from the media giant newspaper. Who led this personality to discover the Young at Art Children’s Workshop? Again, little children, of course!

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs courtesy Omolayo Gallery

It almost felt like a scene already written in the Bible: “Let the children come unto me.” Years ago, inside the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, two children wandered into the small gallery where Nigerian painter and founder of Omolayo Gallery, Biodun Omolayo, was holding one of his Young at Art Children’s Workshops. What happened that day would leave a lasting mark on the workshop.

It was a Saturday and the museum premises was busy with different activities. Inside Omolayo’s gallery, however, the two strange children had found something that caught their attention. They saw other children drawing, painting and learning, and the excitement was easy to see. They stood watching their peers, fascinated by what was happening. by @ibandmagazine

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17 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | Chris “Klay” Ekuafeh Shapes Unity Forged in Clay

Chris “Klay” Ekuafeh opened his solo exhibition, Unity Forged in Clay, on the 26 September 2026, at Quintessence Gallery, Lagos. The exhibition runs until 10 October and marks his first solo exhibition on Nigerian soil, following his first solo show in China in 2025 after his residency at the Taoxichuan Arts Centre in Jingdezhen.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs courtesy Chris Ekuafeh

Chris “Klay” Ekuafeh is a ceramist with ambition and a strong grounding in his craft, Ekuafeh brings together experiences from Kano, Zaria and Lagos in a practice that continues to explore clay, culture, identity and human connection.

The first time I saw Chris Ekuafeh was last year at the former headquarters of Fobally Art Gallery, where I was one of the judges for the Fobally Art World Africa Art Competition for Secondary Schools and Higher Institutions. Chris was in the company of Ato Arinze. Both gentlemen had come to check the venue for their group exhibition, which was also coming up at Fobally Art Gallery around the same period. Read more...

https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/27/artroad-exhibition-chris-klay-ekuafeh-shapes-unity-forged-in-clay/ by @ibandmagazine

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18 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | One Exhibition That Reshaped Our He (arts) Jelili Atiku, the Performance Artist, Takes Us Back to Where It All Began

From the iron coils of Ẹ Wó to the haunting ritual of Araferaku, Jelili Atiku has made the body a language for memory, protest and identity. In this personal reflection, Ireho Aito revisits an encounter with the artist while Jelili takes us back to where his performance journey began.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Jelili Atiku’s Facebook account, published with his permission. Photographs courtesy of Jelili Atiku.

Working with the illustrious masquerade of Africa, Jelili Atiku, would remain one of the most interesting moments in my journalistic sojourn. It was Araferaku – A Part of Me Is Missing that started at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos and took us down to his Ejigbo ancestral home for a command performance. I saw the true nature of a man. He approached me to document it for him and there could be no mistakes. “Aito, this is my performance and nobody can direct me. This is not a stage drama or Nollywood,” he affirmed at CCA. I understood the warning. Jelili was not looking for a performance that could be staged, rearranged or made to fit somebody else’s idea. He knew what he wanted the camera to see. “My projects are in raw format,” he remarked.

At Ejigbo, Jelili became a different personality, almost a mystic figure that one could barely get across to. Olabisi Silva, then Executive Director and curator of the Centre for Contemporary Art, and her curatorial assistant, Taye Idahor, could hardly believe what they were witnessing as the room gradually turned into something like a sanctuary. Welcome to Araferaku.

Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/27/artroad-exhibition-one-exhibition-that-reshaped-our-he-arts-jelili-atiku-the-performance-artist-takes-us-back-to-where-it-all-began/ by @ibandmagazine

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19 days ago

Cover | Ato Arinze at 60: The Sculptor Who Chose to Keep Showing Up.

At 60, Ato Arinze continues to show that an artist’s journey is built not only on talent, but on commitment and consistency. From sculpture to the many lives his work has touched, his story is one of purpose, persistence and showing up.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs Credit: Elizabeth Ekpetorson and Temitope Oladeji. Additional photograph credit: Okotiti Joseph for the Cover

My first encounter with Ato Arinze did not begin with a handshake, neither a studio visit nor an exhibition opening. It began from a distance, through Artzero, the platform he spearheaded through Facebook. Before I eventually met the man, I had already encountered something of his thinking, his interest in artists and his determination to create conversations around art. Our physical meeting would come later at Freedom Park on Broad Street, Lagos, during a Nigerian and South African event. By then, Ato had become familiar to me through his work and his kind of movement, but apparently I was not quite what he had imagined. “I was expecting to see a giant of man,” he jokingly said when he discovered the character behind the stories. What I came to know over time was a man whose influence is found less in physical stature than in the spaces, people, conversations and opportunities he has helped to shape. Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/24/cover-ato-arinze-at-60-the-sculptor-who-chose-to-keep-showing-up/ by @ibandmagazine

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22 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | Victor Ekpuk’s Dancer Still Moving in Exclusive Photographs

The photographs from Victor Ekpuk’s current exhibition give us another look at Dancer, Still Moving at the Goethe-Institut Washington.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Opening reception photographs: Maxwell Glover, @blackbrandagency
Additional photographs: Victor Ekpuk

“Awww!! Thank you son…” was typed in by proud father Victor Ekpuk on his Instagram story when his son was given a befitting appreciation to his father’s exploits over the years, promoting the culture of his people, Nigerians and Africans. He says in his American accent that he is extremely proud of his father and even more elated to be wearing one of his customised T-shirts with Nsibidi designs, simply making him more fashionable and happy to have such a father.

It was a moment that brought the personal side of Ekpuk’s story into the exhibition experience, where art, family, culture and pride came together. And it is within these moments that the photographs from the exhibition begin to tell their own story. Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/22/artroad-exhibition-victor-ekpuks-dancer-still-moving-in-exclusive-photographs/ by @ibandmagazine

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22 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | LagosPhoto Moves from Lagos to Nottingham — When Photographs Cross Borders More Freely Than People

The way and style Nigerian artist Gerald Chukwuma has reflected the journey of LagosPhoto to Nottingham remains exemplary and thoughtfully captivating. His reflection, shared on Facebook, does not merely celebrate an exhibition. It gives us opportunity to consider what happens when photographs travel across borders while the people and realities represented in those photographs may not enjoy the same freedom of movement.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Quotes Gerald Chukwuma Facebook page. Photographs courtesy Gerald Chukwuma/Facebook. Cover photograph courtesy Gerald Chukwuma photo archive/Facebook.

“What if your photograph had more freedom than you?” Chukwuma asks, giving the movement of an image a deeply human dimension.

It is a striking opening to his account of LagosPhoto 2026: Stories of Movement and Belonging, now presented at Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham. His words give the exhibition another layer, because LagosPhoto has always been about more than photographs on walls. For iBAND Magazine, its continuing story has been about looking, power, freedom, memory and the right to tell African stories from African perspectives.

Many art enthusiasts and not just photography enthusiasts have followed LagosPhoto through its transformation and more so, from what iBAND Magazine 2025 report described as Azu Nwagbogu’s bold experiment in 2010 into a major visual platform. That report noted that LagosPhoto had moved beyond being simply a festival to becoming a conversation about “power, truth, and the politics of looking.”

Now, the movement is literal.

LagosPhoto has moved from Lagos to Nottingham, carrying with it stories about movement and belonging. The poster announcing the Nottingham exhibition captures that journey with a masked figure staring directly at the viewer. Beside the image are the words
“LAGOSPHOTO – STORIES OF MOVEMENT AND BELONGING.” The exhibition is at Djanogly Gallery, Lakeside Arts, read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/21/artroad-exhibition-lagosphoto-moves-from-lagos-to-notting by @ibandmagazine

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24 days ago

Cover | Finding Emmanuel Dudu Arugha, One of The Industry Versatile Connectors

From Benin City to Lagos, Emmanuel Arugha Dudu’s journey is a story of art, survival, relationships and the courage to keep moving and winning the inaugural Spain Through Nigerian Eyes competition with Mama’s Favourite Wrapper. We unfold some of his conquests through grits and character from the wrap.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Cover Photograph credit: Youngbishoppictures. Courtesy Emmanuel Dudu Arugha. Artworks credit Emmanuel Arugha Dudu

Emmanuel Dudu Arugha is an artist whose paintings announce his presence without needing much introduction. The palette knife is central to his language, giving his surfaces a physical character, while bold colours and expressive figures bring movement and meaning to his work. His landscapes, too, are rarely just landscapes. They carry traces of places, people and experiences that have stayed with him. Behind the paintings is an artist who has spent years connecting creativity with enterprise, people and purpose.

“I like my works to tell stories,” Dudu says.

That storytelling has taken him from the School of Art and Design, Federal Polytechnic Auchi, to Lagos, Madrid, Venice, Amsterdam and exhibitions across Nigeria and beyond. But the journey has never been his alone. It has been shaped by friendship, family, classmates, mentors, collectors, clients and a remarkable group of artists who graduated together in 1999 and have refused to let three decades separate them.

Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/21/cover-finding-emmanuel-dudu-arugha-one-of-the-industry-versatile-connectors/ by @ibandmagazine

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25 days ago

ARTROAD – Exhibition | Five Highlights That Made A Collector’s Eye Stand Out

At Quintessence Gallery, Lagos, Prof. Ebun Clark’s collection of Adewale Alimi’s works became more than an exhibition. It became a meeting of an artist, a collector, a gallery and years of looking, collecting and remembering.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs courtesy Joseph Okotiti

There was something different about Collector Studies: A Collector’s Eye – Prof. Ebun Clark on Artist Alimi Adewale. It was not simply about putting 26 works by one artist on a gallery wall. It was about showing what happens when an artist’s journey is followed closely enough for another person to become part of its history.

Inside Quintessence Gallery on Saturday, 12 September 2026, the audience encountered Alimi through the eyes of Prof. Ebun Clark, whose relationship with the artist has grown over years. Here are five highlights that made the exhibition particularly memorable. Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/15/artroad-exhibition-five-highlights-that-made-a-collectors-eye-stand-out/ by @ibandmagazine

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a month ago

Cover | Yusuf Durodola Upcycle World : So Useful, the World Honours His Usefulness

“I have seen this as my calling. I got determined that this is no more passion but life itself.”

As the ArtMiabo International Art Festival draws closer, one of the creative Nigerians who has helped shape its story graces our Cover Edition.

Yusuf Durodola takes us into his world, growing up, family, influence and the experiences that helped make him who he is today. His journey did not begin with art alone. He fell in love with accounting and mathematics, disciplines built on numbers, order and calculation. Yet, somewhere along the way, creativity changed the equation.

Today, those early influences have found a different expression. Durodola has carved a creative path of his own, one that has increasingly brought people to him in search of something deeply personal: the freedom to express themselves.

In this Cover Edition, he talks about the people, places and experiences behind the man and the creative force we have come to know as Yusuf Durodola.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs courtesy Yusuf Durodola archives

He was infectious to everyone around him. It was hard not to notice Yusuf Durodola, not only because of his top-notch fashion appearance, always turning out in beautifully embroidered African fabrics with the cap to match, but also because of the energy he brought to whatever he was doing.

I watched the behind-the-scenes of Yusuf trying to direct an orchestrated scene for a short documentary on one of the legends of Nigerian art, painter and teacher of teachers, Dr Kolade Osinowo, during the Kolade Osinowo Honour at the ArtMiabo Art Festival. Watching him move around the production, trying to put the story together, offered another glimpse into the many sides of a man who is never quite limited to one role.
Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/12/cover-yusuf-durodola-upcycle-world-so-useful-the-world-honours-his-usefulness/ by @ibandmagazine

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ARTROAD – Exhibition | Collector’s Eye: When Ebun Clark Opens Her Collection, Adewale Alimi Comes Home

On Saturday, 12 September 2026, at Quintessence Gallery, Lagos, Prof. Ebun Clark presented a selection from her collection of Adewale Alimi’s works, bringing years of the artist’s creative journey into one exhibition. A Collector’s Eye offers a rare look at Alimi’s evolving practice through the works chosen and preserved by one of Nigeria’s foremost art collectors.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs Joseph Okotiti

I remember my first visit to Adewale Alimi’s studio-house at Atican Beach, along Ibeju Lekki expressway, Lagos.0 It was one of those visits that reminded me why following artists through writing is worthwhile. You enter a studio expecting to see works, but sometimes you leave carrying something beyond the images being fired up in those studios. One thing for sure, is you carry the artist’s environment, his conversations, his way of looking at things and perhaps a better understanding of where the works are coming from.

Atican Beach gave that first encounter another texture. Away from the familiar rhythm of central Lagos, Alimi’s home and studio sat within an environment where the coastal landscape, the developing community, the buildings, the sea and the changing human presence around him became part of his everyday visual experience. It was not difficult to imagine an artist observing the city differently from there. The beach was not simply his address. It was another studio.

Read more...https://ibandmagazine.com/2026/09/14/artroad-exhibition-collectors-eye-when-ebun-clark-opens-her-collection-adewale-alimi-comes-home/ by @ibandmagazine

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a month ago