Born - 1943

I was working with the Duro Lapido National Theater as a stage technician and actor when I participated in an art workshop in 1964, in my native Osogbo, Nigeria. This experimental workshop, organized by Ulli Beier and conducted by his wife Georgina Beier, known as The Osogbo School of Art, was the catalyst for launching my career.

During my first year as an artist, I concentrated on oil painting and then decided to look for a unique or signature medium of expression through which to communicate my art. While touring in Holland with the theater group, a mosaic mural caught my attention and my imagination began to soar. The Yoruba people of Nigeria traditionally had incorporated beads in many of their art forms. In particular, their glittering look encouraged the use of beads in decorating the King's regalia, including crowns, shoes and walking sticks. My innovation, also my challenge was to adapt this historic use of beads to the more contemporary art form of painting.

Returning to Nigeria in 1966, I mounted my earliest mosaics, using beads, seashells, broken bottles and broken plates to create tabletops. Later, I met Jean Wolford who advised me to use glue to lay beads on canvas. This concept opened up new life for me and for my art. Eventually, I adjusted the creative process from beads on canvas to beads on wood, a heavier and more suitable foundation. My first exhibition of bead paintings was held at the Goethe Institute in Lagos in 1967.