Fast-rising visual artists to watch this year

While the Nigerian visual art sector has incredible talent across generations of artists, there are some younger artists that are truly taking the bull by the horn, considering their creative ingenuity. Below are some of them in no particular order.

Deborah Segun

Born in 1994, the multidisciplinary artist, who is based in Lagos, obtained a degree in Fashion Design at the Polimoda Institute of Fashion Design and Marketing in Florence, Italy in 2017. During her studies in fashion, she translated her own art production into clothing, creating conceptual and sculptural wearable pieces.

Her works are mainly figurative with a focus on portraiture unique, while their uniqueness is offering a mix between cubism and abstraction. Her technique is unique. She skillfully combines abstraction and figuration and that was evident in the way she created voluptuous figures in varied graceful poses, thus celebrating the female form in a refreshing and lyrical style.

She debuted in the art market just in 2017 and has achieved great feats for herself within a short period is enough to trigger interest.

She is definitely among African female artists on the rise, as well as one artist to look out for this year.

Also, she takes a playful and purist approach to her work by focusing on form rather than detail, through the use of different artistic mediums.

Moreover, the inspiration behind her works stem from her personal and shared experiences as a woman, as well as observations of any given space she occupies at a time. She tries to capture these experiences through her unique and experimental use of colours and shapes, which she believes creates a sense of simplicity and calmness out of a rather complex scenario. She exaggerates the figures or displaces them, as she believes it is her own way of confronting how she sees things. She also likes to isolate shapes from the subjects/objects and put them together to create a new composition.

Myles Igwebuike

Myles Igwebuike is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and cultural strategist. The award-winning multimedia artist creates works of art and design that expound on heritage, urbanism and diplomacy.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, he is the founder of Njiko, a design think-tank reimagining cultural heritage for future-making. Igwebuike engages in a research-led approach that challenges the conventions of creation and presents a radical way of interacting with art and the material world around us. Igwebuike’s works capture the similarities and tension—in terrain, culture and development— between Enugu, Luanda, Fes and London, where he spends most of his time.

He had his first solo exhibition in Nigeria titled “The Space Between Worlds: A Cartography of Self,” which encompasses sculpture, painting, textile, photography and sound, from November 6-19, 2025 at Temple Muse, Victoria island, Lagos.

He contributed to the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial and curated the Nigeria Pavilion at the 2025 London Design Biennale, awarded a Special Mention by the international jury. Named among Architectural Digest’s AD100 Rising Stars to Watch (2024), Igwebuike currently serves as a Design Expert for the UK Design Council and Special Assistant on Transportation to the Governor of Anambra State.

He is currently leading the design of a research library in Lagos and an earth factory in Luanda, Angola, advancing material experimentation, environmental thinking, and spatial justice.

Demola Ogunajo

Demola Ogunajo is a Nigerian contemporary mix-media artist, whose works are sought-after.

His creative ingenuity is incredible and bears witness of his passion, which he nurtures effortlessly.

Demola is among the few that don’t just come to public space or exhibit their works for the sake of exhibition; there has to be a strong conviction to do so.

That conviction manifested with his recent exhibition titled ‘Womb to Street’, a solo exhibition at Soto Gallery Ikoyi, Lagos, which came after four years of his last one in 2021.

“When I work, it is from that ambience of gratitude, of sense of responsibility, delight in God, and a sense of my responsibility. And within that ambience, there is guidance and revelations,” he said.

What endears his works to viewers and collectors alike is his sincerity to his calling, to what he loves, and his passion.

“I have to love my painting before I put it out,” he said.

“When I am painting or working on them, any art piece I produce, I must be in love with the work. I have to go through that filter”.

Demola is bold with his works, particularly in this era where identity and belief are increasingly politicized, as his paintings offer a transcendent vision: faith as lived experience, tradition as evolving dialogue, and art as a site of fearless testimony.

Again, Demola’s signature universe is a vibrant tapestry with the signature irreverence and graphic precision of pop art, where angels share canvas space with Lagos street motifs and other intriguing oddities.

Also, Demola’s paintings are filled with paradox: playful yet profound, cartoonish yet cosmic, they interrogate themes of transcendence, divine struggle, and the absurdity of modern life through a lexicon of symbols that is both personal and universal.

Chukwumereogo Nnenna Okeke

Born in 1989, Chukwumereogo Nnenna Okeke is a visual artist who explores themes of gender and culture, and uses them as a metaphor in assessing broader issues of socioeconomic and political inequality. While mostly likening human forms to landscapes in textured drawings, her works question the limitations of tradition by playing with the scale of her subjects. She works with acrylic, charcoal and pastel, and has begun experimenting with locally sourced materials like beeswax and clay.

She creates textured visual worlds that question the weight of tradition and the inequalities embedded within it. Often likening the human form to landscape, her works explore scale, distortion, and materiality, challenging how we perceive bodies, boundaries, and belonging. Using acrylic, charcoal, and pastel, and more recently, beeswax and clay, her evolving practice draws from memory, environment, and resistance.

Her recent outing was as part of a group exhibition Underland, where her featured works include: To Speak in Other Tongues, 2025, When Shall I See My Home? 2024, among others.

Through these works, Chukwumereogo reclaims the body as a site of resistance, using scale and abstraction to question systems of social and political exclusion.

Ashiata Shaibu-Salami

Born in 1998, Shaibu-Salami Ashiata is a contemporary mixed media artist from Kogi State, who grew up in Ibadan. She is a painter who considers life from different perspectives. Her journey into art was inspired by her urge to communicate about freedom: the freedom to express ourselves, the freedom to live and the freedom to dream. Ashiata’s love of art led her to explore diverse mediums and techniques. In her paintings she uses paint, mixed media collages, impasto, sponging, picture and paper transfers.  Her work is influenced by her love of writing, music, and travel.

Ashiata’s work explores the complexities of the human mind, emotional growth, and the unseen layers of self. Her work captures this contrast gently, without overstating, offering a quiet reflection on the journeys we all take both personal and shared.

Through these works, Ashiata invites us to reflect on the rawness of internal struggle and the quiet beauty of self-examination.

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