JD 'Okhai Ojeikere

JD 'Okhai Ojeikere was born in 1930, in the village of Ovbiomu-Emai in south-western Nigeria. By the age twenty he was one of the only photographers in his region. In 1954, Ojeikere became a photojournalist for the Ministry of Information in Ibadan where he worked for seven years. In 1961, he started to work as a studio photographer for Television House Ibadan, before focusing in publicity when he joined the West African Publicity in Lagos from 1963 until 1975. In that time, Ojeikere became a member of the Nigeria Art Council and travelled across Nigeria with the council. In 1968, he started to document Nigerian culture, beginning a series of photographs representing Nigerian hairstyles. Over the course of his life Ojeikere recorded more than a thousand pictures of different African women’s hairstyles, as well as traditional headties. The series of photographs, which includes both popular and ceremonial styles, is of historic and anthropological significance as well as aesthetic value, and have been exhibited multiple times in major international venues.

Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare was born in 1962 in London, United Kingdom before moving to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three with his family. He returned to London to study Fine Art and later graduated as part of the Young British Artists generation. Working in painting, sculpture, photography, film, and performance, Shonibare’s work explores race, class, and the construction of cultural identity through sharp political commentary of the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and their respective economic and political histories. In 1994, Shonibare started to use brightly coloured African fabrics, Dutch wax-printed cotton, both as the ground of his paintings and to cover his sculptures. Originally produced in Dutch Indonesia, the fabrics became a popular item of clothing in Africa, and rapidly became a sign of identity and authenticity among Africans. Shonibare’s re-created famous paintings using headless dummies with Africanised clothes instead of their original costumes. He also used photography and video to recreate stories from British literature or paintings with himself taking centre stage as an alternative. Shonibare’s work is included in many prestigious collections and has been exhibited in numerous international venues.

Iké Udé

Iké Udé was born in 1964 in Lagos, Nigeria. He was exposed to photography at an early age because his family dressed up for biweekly portraits. He successively moved to London and New York to study Media Communication. He started his artistic career with abstract painting and drawing before turning to photography, which became his primary medium since then. With his photographic self-portraits, dressed in varied costumes across time and space, Udé’s work explores issues of representation and sexual, cultural, and stylistic identity. Quite conversant with the world of fashion and celebrity, Udé gives a new vitality to conceptual aspects of performance and representation by melding his own theatrical selves and multiple personae with his art. Udé has exhibited in various international exhibitions and has been reviewed in numerous publications. His articles on fashion and art have been published in magazines and newspapers worldwide. Udé plays with the ambiguity of the marketplace and art world, particularly in his seminal art and fashion magazine aRUDE. He is also the author of Style File, a book that profiles some of the most influential arbiters of style in the world today.