Samson Bakare (b. 1993) is a Nigerian painter and sculptor from Lagos who studied painting at Yaba College of Technology. In 2022 he was among the artists Alessandro Michele invited to reinterpret Gucci’s Bamboo 1947 bag, and the same year his work was shown at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius. He calls his style “Afro-classicism”: dark-toned figures with protruding, meticulously detailed eyes against floral backgrounds address Black identity and decolonisation.
Samson Bakare (b. 1993, Lagos, Nigeria) is a Nigerian painter and sculptor. He was inspired early on by his father, an architect in Lagos, and as a child drew comics and re-created scenes from films. In 2012 he served an apprenticeship at the Universal Studios of Art at the National Theatre in Lagos, and he graduated in painting from the School of Art and Design at Yaba College of Technology. He also trained with established Nigerian artists including Abiodun Olaku, Raji Babatunde, Edosa Oguigo and Ejoh Wallace. Bakare describes his approach as “Afro-classicism”, a blend of classicism and stylisation influenced among other things by East African Coptic art. His paintings typically show dark-toned figures with protruding, meticulously detailed eyes and blank expressions against dynamic floral backgrounds, and address Black identity, decolonisation, restitution and contemporary fashion, often with a satirical view of British imperialism. Besides acrylic painting on canvas, he works with fibreglass sculpture, spray paint, wood and paper. In 2022 he was one of the artists invited by Alessandro Michele to reinterpret Gucci’s Bamboo 1947 bag. The same year his work was shown in Vilnius in the exhibition “Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity” at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum. The acrylic paintings “Simba in Mickey Mouse Top” and “Family Portrait 2” (both 2021), offered by TUMO Gallery, are characteristic examples of his portraits.
