Busayo Lawal: Life in Asymmetry

For more than two decades, Busayo Lawal has interrogated the conventions of visual vocabularies to challenge received notions of the time-space continuum, migration and power. In his first major exhibition in Nigeria titled Life in Asymmetry, Lawal has created a seminal body of work that is premised on his lifelong obsession with the rich tapestries of aso oke, the ceremonial woven cloth that is unique to the Yoruba people of West Africa and its diaspora. From large scale paintings to drawings on paper, Lawal has repurposed in new and inventive forms the motifs and colour schemes that are central to an ageless tradition.

Life in Asymmetry is Lawal's artistic statement writ-large. The intricacies of woven cloth and the beguiling patterns that they form tell the stories of craft and purpose, dedication and cultural histories, fortitude and fate. “What makes the man is the story. What makes the story is the man” says the artist, a pithy maxim that conceals enormous complexities, as true in life as it is this new body of work.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Life in Asymmetry is Lawal’s second solo exhibition since his 2014 show at Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. Lawal has participated in group projects helmed by the Bruce Onobrakpeya Foundation and Ford Foundation. His works have featured in numerous group exhibitions in Lagos organised by the National Gallery of Art, Alliance Francaise, United Nations Information Centre, the National Council for Art and Culture and Eko Atlantic. He has also participated in other group shows in Abuja at the Greece and Italian embassies. He lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.

This exhibition is curated by Sabo Kpade.