Qozeem Abdulrahman Olaoluwa (b. 2000) is a largely self-taught Nigerian painter based in Badagry, near Lagos, who began in 2018 as a studio assistant to the artist Agemo Francis. His work has been shown in Bogotá, at the Urvanity fair in Madrid and, in 2022, at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius. In mixed media, he paints bodies in bright acrylic and faces in paper and charcoal, recalling a rural childhood with nostalgia and innocence.
Qozeem Abdulrahman Olaoluwa (b. 2000, Nigeria) is a Nigerian contemporary painter based in Badagry, near Lagos. Largely self-taught, he began his artistic path in 2018 as a studio assistant at EFstudio under the mentorship of the artist Agemo Francis. He works in mixed media on canvas, shaping the bodies of his figures in bright acrylic colour while using paper and charcoal for the faces, so that the scenes are only partially “recreated” from reality. His subjects come largely from memories of a childhood spent in rural areas – games, play, community life and the experience of growing up – and his paintings explore memory, identity and a sense of place with a tone of nostalgia and innocence. His early exhibitions and auctions in Nigeria include Next of Kin Art (2020), the Affordable Art Auction at Arthouse Contemporary in Lagos (2020) and the SOGAL art auction in Lagos (2021). In 2021 his work was shown internationally in “Super Plástica” at Galería Casa Cuadrada in Bogotá and at the Urvanity art fair in Madrid. In 2022 he was one of fifteen artists from six African countries in the exhibition “Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity” at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum in Vilnius, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. The painting “It Is Time for Breakfast” (2021), in oil and collage on canvas, offered by TUMO Gallery, was shown in that exhibition.
