Artist Opeyemi Olukotun sat down with AGSM Artistic Director and Curator of his upcoming exhibition, Through my window, there is a view in May 2025 to speak about his background as an artist and an individual, and the trials that inspired the show. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Lucie Lederhendler: So I would like to do three things. To learn about you, to learn about your artistic priorities. Your passions, you know, kind of how you became involved as an artist, and then about this show. So first, tell me where you’re from.
Opeyemi Olukotun: OK, so I’m from Ipetu Ijesha, Osun State, Nigeria. I was born there in 1989. All the things that happened in-between, I have no idea. I moved to Lagos in 1995 as a kid. My dad lived in Lagos.
Lucie: Is Lagos a better place for a kid?
Opeyemi: Yeah, it’s a better place for kids. It has a lot of opportunities and exposure. It all depends on what you want, but I felt it was a good move. I think it was the best move for me. Ipetu Ijesha is like a small town, without many opportunities. I was really small. So what were my priorities anyway? For more exposure–
Lucie: To culture?
Opeyemi: Yeah, and for opportunities, Lagos is the best place to live, although it has some disadvantages as well, in terms of crimes and things like that, just like every other big city. So I moved there, 1995. High school was kind of rough, because from my upbringing from Ipetu Ijesha, I didn’t know much. In Lagos I started learning how to speak English. I was fluent in my local language–that’s Yoruba. It’s a good thing to know your language first.
Lucie: For sure, especially in all these former British colonies, keeping the languages alive is so important.
Opeyemi: Yeah, we speak Yoruba to my daughter at home, because it’s essential to know your home language. So I appreciated that I learned that. But when I went to Lagos, I didn’t know how to read, or anything like that. When I started learning that, they took me to Oshugu to stay with my father’s elder sister for one year. I was very mischievous there. If my way to the house is to the left, then I always first go to the right to go play games before going back home.
Lucie: So on the one hand, you follow your curiosity, but on the other you’re maybe indulging too much.
Opeyemi: Sometimes my older cousin reminds me of silly things I did back then. How school closed at 3 PM and I would get home at 7 PM. Always turning the other way to go play, and people looking for me everywhere. I returned back to Lagos in 1998.That was when I started learning English fluently. I started learning math. In that year, my position in class–my results according to all my grades in mathematics, social studies, all those things like that, were in a [comparison] grid with the other students–
Lucie: Terrible. Even if you’re very good, you end up thinking that you’re really bad in comparison.
Opeyemi: I think out of 19, I was 15. I was still just learning some of these things. My dad wasn’t happy with the results, and neither was I. But do I care that much? I don’t know. The following term, I became more interested in learning, so I got better, especially at math. I was so good at that, I came in like third position that term.
Prior to that, before I got that, I started drawing at home. My dad came home and he saw that I drew my younger brother with a pen. So maybe in grade 3 or 4, we knew I could draw.
Lucie: Were you looking at any art, do you remember? I mean, were you doing a particular style?
Opeyemi: No, I just took a pen. I was just drawing. I told him to pose for me. We were wowed. When you hear compliments from people–
Lucie: At a time when you’re struggling so much–
Opeyemi: When I saw that he was so impressed, and I now had an art teacher in school, I was very eager to get into that class. It was fun. I realized then that I had a flair for drawing, but still it wasn’t something you would ask a little boy: What do you want to be in the future? Some of us would say, engineer, doctor, things like that. I never thought of being an artist.
Lucie: But it was something that you were getting compliments for when you weren’t getting compliments for very much else.
Opeyemi: When I got into the GSS 1 [Government Secondary School, grade 10 equivalent], it was rough. I didn’t get my-my spark. The ending of that particular stage of school was great for me. I was catching up, and I got into like secondary school, I thought I was going to, you know, and it felt–
Lucie: Like everything was on its way up?
Opeyemi: Yeah! But there, everything felt too much. I don’t know if I ever caught up, to be honest, I don’t know. I think I struggled through all of secondary.
Lucie: It’s a sad period of your life, is what you’re saying. Not feeling good?
Opeyemi: It’s not as though I wasn’t feeling good, but I felt I was doing better than the results said. Maybe because I started late in trying to get educated. And then, going to SS 1 [Senior Secondary], you have to choose where you want to specialize. You have to specialize in the art you want to do. Is it commercial? Is it science? Is it technical science? Before that, I wanted to be a computer engineer. I never thought about being an artist. I went to technical science. You can do normal physics, chemistry, maths, English; you do technical drawing, woodwork, metal work, applied electricity, or basic electronics and things like that. There’s a technical drawing, which replaced biology for technical science students, but for pure sciences, they don’t have technical drawings.
I didn’t go to the arts because I just wanted to be a computer engineer. But before you go to college, you do an exam called JAMB. You need above 200 to be admitted by any university. So I did that. I was not close. I took it again the next year and I did better. So I got into Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Oyo state, Nigeria. For under-level students, you all do the same general courses–you do maths, English, physics, this kind of thing–there’s this course called fine art. I never thought about that. It was weird to me.
When I went to buy the pack for the course at the department, I saw people gathered around. There was a model seated, and students were drawing. I said to my friend, hey, I know how to draw. So I was happy with having that sort of course. I remember I drew for most of my friends–I would assist them.
After I passed, I went to buy the change of course form. I wrote down computers. I wrote physics down as well. After a while, I took Tipp-Ex [correction fluid] l to clean it off. Like 3 times I did that. I had enjoyed the fine art course, so maybe it’s something I should try. It was rare for people to cross to that department because people are mostly chosen already. If courses are filled, a department can just take you if they need people in that department. So in Fine Arts, of maybe 250 students, there might be two that have a good idea about drawing.
Lucie: That’s so funny, you just have all these people sitting there not knowing–
Opeyemi: Yeah, so most of them leave the next year. And by then, who’s left actually wants to go. But me and a friend of mine moved. I moved from chemistry, and he moved from management. His name is Seyi Gbadebo. I only know how to draw, but he had painted, like, he does this roadside thing. I thought it was just art, I never knew there were more things involved, like history, appreciation, and all the specializations.
Lucie: It’s kind of smart to try everything early–maybe you never thought of textile, for example, and then you get to try it.
Opeyemi: Yeah, we did that. You have to do everything that first year. You must have an idea of everything in the Fine and Applied Arts and the applied arts. It was fun, to be honest, but it was annoying as well.
Lucie: Because you knew you just wanted to paint.
Opeyemi: Yeah, I just wanted to paint, and I was not that good at painting.
Lucie: So it’s like everything’s wasting your time. You should be learning how to be a better painter.
Opeyemi: Yeah. Finally, I could specialize in painting. Because that’s just what I just want to do. Some people fell in love with clay, so they went to ceramics, some graphics, some sculpting, and some textile. You major in one and minor in one. Sometimes I minored in graphics, sometimes I minored in sculpting. I never went back to ceramics. I think because it’s something you have to be very careful with. I want to be more freestyle, more spontaneous. I had fun with that, and I started catching up. And then! The big change that came was in third year. In Nigerian universities you have to go out into the field.
Lucie: Like an apprentice?
Opeyemi: Yes, you have to. So if someone at Brandon University is studying curatorial studies at school, in third year, second semester, they have to come to maybe work in the gallery under a professional curator, to understand the business outside the school system.
Lucie: Super smart.
Opeyemi: Yeah. They do that a lot in Nigeria. That was where things changed for me. You know, you think you can draw, you have talent and things like that, then you go to some places and you see that you don’t know shit. That was what happened to most of us. So I decided to go to Universal Studios of Art in Lagos State, where you have prominent Nigerian artists, like Ejoh Wallace Awale, Abiodun Olaku, Bunmi Babatunde, the sculptor, Joshua Nmesirionye. People like that.
Lucie: Who was your contact person there? Or did you just walk into the studio and start painting next to them?
Opeyemi: No no, you have to go there, apply, take your documents from school, submit them. And then, you learn, a lot. Like, you learn.
Lucie: What’s the work that you’re doing? Are you a studio assistant, or are you creating
art right next to them?
Opeyemi: I’m a student that came to apprentice, that came to learn. They don’t call you an artist, you’re just an art student. You don’t know anything. We go there to learn. We draw every day, Monday to Friday, you draw. You do quick sketches first, then detailed drawings. I had thousands of drawings. That’s where my development started. My understanding of colours, especially, I had Wallace Ejoh. I studied his palette, the way he mixes his colours. He doesn’t mix colours like me–prior to coming for the Industrial Training (I.T.), I would just sit down, mix one color, mix another color, mix another color, but when you‘re ready to put the paint on canvas, more than 60% of the colours you mix would turn to waste, because only when you start painting do you realize that this colours you mixed are not useful for what you will do. So after a month being at Universal Studios, I realized he doesn’t mix those colors down. He mixes just as he’s painting.
Lucie: Just one brush stroke at a time.
Opeyemi: There’s this interesting harmony that happens, and understanding. He understands his palette, he understands colors, he knows. There are color restrictions as well. They tell you, you don’t use–there’s no black on your palate, and there’s no white, so that your work doesn’t look chalky. These things we usually know from university. But at the studio, you’re only allowed to have two shades of primary colors: a light and deep yellow, light and deep red, and a light and a deep blue. Then with that you can mix thousands of colours, right? With just a little bit of white and no black. From these colours you can get something related to black, but not black.
Lucie: It sounds like you were watching and finding it almost magical.
Opeyemi: Yeah, seeing that, it was. It was a tedious training, but knowing these things gives you so much confidence. That entire six months was golden for me. It was the right decision to go there. I can’t thank the person that even mentioned it to me enough–his name is Abasi. I think he resides in the US now.
Lucie: So you had done six months in the studio.
Opeyemi: Yeah, and then back to school. You know, before leaving, your understanding and your perspective–you think that you know how to paint. Then in the field, seeing professionals with three decades of experience, who are still doing awesomely, and they’re still in demand, it makes your overall experience change. Even if it has not really reflected in your production as an artist, knowing all those things, coming back now and seeing some works that you used to praise, that now look like child’s piss to you.
Lucie: So that’s again maybe the magic or the spiritual, right? The levels of understanding you move through, that actually create a new plane, where you can see differently.
Opeyemi: Yeah. Some of us that practice, like Seyi Gbadebo–he also went to Universal Studios of Art, and Palmer, and two other people as well. So we were two sculptors and three painters. When we went back, our level of understanding had just expanded. Palmer was so good. The department also chose him, he wanted to do medicine. Seyi, he was already painting before he even came to school, so he was good. Then me, I struggled to catch up with them. Their work was being more acknowledged by the masters in the studio than mine. I was good, but not selling any pieces. When we went back to school, I don’t know how to say it, but my level from when I left Universal Studios, just within a month, without any extra practice or anything, with the works I was producing, something had just happened to it, some magical thing.
Lucie: You had a breakthrough.
Opeyemi: From there to when I stepped into school, I was totally different. I was producing amazing works. I was. That was where the magic happened, when I did my Industrial Training at the Universal Studios in Lagos.
After that we finish school we do a thing called NYSC [National Youth Service Corps]. It’s good because it builds confidence, and overall understanding of the environment around you, and as a nation. You have to serve your country for one year, in whichever state they push you to. 2013, they posted me to Cross River State. I taught in the secondary school, Fine Arts and physics. I still love physics, so it was fun. I enjoyed that. Then after that, I moved to Abuja. I don’t want to go back to Lagos.
Lucie: Why?
Opeyemi: Everything is just too fast. I just wanted somewhere else, somewhere different. I went to Abuja, to one place called Arts and Craft Village. I was there for three or four months, and it didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t understand the art market there, to be honest.
Lucie: So the youth corps, does that mean that most youth in Nigeria move around as much as you do?
Opeyemi: Everybody has to.
Lucie: That’s really interesting, that you have to get to know everybody new. And different cultures, and different places. I think it’s probably really good to leave home.
Opeyemi: Yeah, it was fun. I met a lot of people, I made a lot of friends and that. I only came back to Lagos to drop some things off and pick some things up. After the one year I went to Abuja. It was tough to survive as an artist. In September I got to work in a school as an art teacher for a year and a half. Then I resigned. The arts piece in Abuja is fine but it’s not huge.
Lucie: But you didn’t want the big city.
Opeyemi: I didn’t want it, no. There was a particular teacher that used to tell me that I need to move. You don’t belong here. She saw my work, and she asked, do I still sell as I teach? I told her I solely teach, and collect salary. I collect salary monthly, and I spend it. So, I just made the decision: I’m going to stop. I’m going to resign and move back to Lagos.
Lucie: Was that a very brave decision, to think that you could make a living as an artist in Lagos?
Opeyemi: One thing that influenced that was friends I have in Arts and Crafts in Abuja, that were still practicing and living fine. I saw I was struggling, and I was a good artist. It’s not self-praise, but, you know your own capacity and you feel you should do well as well. I was limiting myself, and they were doing amazingly well, because they stayed. They stayed until they started having a client base. I was just teaching, and I was not bad at teaching, I was good. But I also upgraded myself in the process. I did one year of postgraduate education just to have an idea of the education system. I said if I stay in this, Abuja, I might still pick up my CV and dust it off and find a job, so let me just go where I know there are artists practicing.
So I went to Universal Studios of Art, and applied for internship for one year. I went. First year, it was not so bad. I sold a couple of pieces that would relatively amount to what I would have made in a year working as a teacher.
Lucie: I assume it’s more expensive in Lagos.
Opeyemi: Yeah, it was more expensive in Lagos. And later, I found some bad business, where one senior artist said that he had a contact, and I did a lot of paintings for him. He only paid me for transport. This is a very sad one for me because I’m just coming back to practice. I did over 20 pieces for him, and I didn’t get paid a dime, and he collected the money. He treated a young artist very, very poorly. It’s one of those things that could discourage an emerging artist. You have calculated how much you’re going to make, how to make things easier, to get materials and things like that. He changed my names on those works.
Lucie: Your signature? So he was always a criminal.
Opeyemi: Yes. He did. Criminal, yeah. I am just bringing this up to say those were times in my career that were discouraging. But when I spoke with Mr. Abiodun Olaku, who is a prominent Nigerian artist, someone I look up to, he said, that’s one of the sacrifices of the practice, that you meet people like that, but you just learn from it. So I learned from that.
Lucie: To check contracts and things like that?
Opeyemi: How people treat people, and how you avoid being in that sort of space. And that sometimes, it doesn’t end well for people like that. He showed me some practical examples, and you know, a few years down the line, I saw myself doing extremely fine. And then you see this person as well. When you think of what you’ve done to people, you can see their karma–I don’t know if you believe in karma, but I believe in it.
Lucie: I like to.
Opeyemi: I choose to.
Lucie: Because otherwise you feel like you have to find justice yourself.
Opeyemi: Yes. So I just–it will catch up with the person. The same year, another big game-changer came, when I asked Mr. Abiodun Olaku, the great painter, to loan me some funds. He said, Do you have works to sell? And I took some work to him, and we talked. I was like this fast painter, I liked to make something expressive and finish painting it in one day. I liked all the accolades, and these works were selling. But maybe I was selling myself too cheaply because I could just reproduce it. He told me that I could work more on this piece, one from that okada [motorcycle taxi] series that he saw and liked. He said I should take this work, and work more on it. That I should just add some other forms. I did. I took it back to the school so I could do some more work on it. I did. I brought it back and he asked, do I not like it more now, like this? I said I think so, as I looked at it. I never knew I could push myself to that level of, not really details, but expression. So he bought that piece. He had paid me even before he sent me back because I needed the money. But he liked the piece he bought. After that piece, I did a series of the okada people riding bikes, and I went so deep with that. I started enjoying the process of seeing how deep I could go.
Lucie: You mean both visually and conceptually? How much meaning can I get into it, get out of it?
Opeyemi: Right. Also, application, production, and final aesthetics. And how to choose a subject. This way became more interesting for me. Instead of just throwing up a colour study–I do that sometimes, and it’s expressive–but there are deeper things, and deeper tonal traditions that I want to have. If I rush it, I might not have those intense and emotive feelings coming out from those pieces.
So I started doing that, and I was enjoying it. I enjoyed the body of work I started creating. He bought another piece from me, a turbaned person. And I started having–
Lucie: A good time? He was there for your I.T. as well, right?
Opeyemi: He was there. I think his studio is outside the studio where I did it, but he came in once in a while to talk. But he was one of the trustees–one of the founders of the studio.
Lucie: Part of the Universal Studio.
Opeyemi: Universal is over 40 years old now. In 2019, he involved me in a group show. That’s when the career, everything, started. I started doing many shows, participating in this and that. My body of work started evolving from normal compositions, even from the okada series I did. I explored sellers–people that sell things, at night, just to understand light and shade. I found people who have an interest in me, like, do you have anything in this series again? So I continued to explore working in series.
You know when I said I outsource for references? These [street scenes] are just [mimes taking a photo discreetly], where they didn’t know I was taking pictures of them. I did that so it could be real, not composed. Before I knew it, I had created like 15 in the series. I sold all of them, and then I did market scenes, you know, buying and selling. And I was also doing faces. But some people prefer not to put someone’s face in their house.
Lucie: So they’re a little harder to sell.
Opeyemi: Yeah, for me they were, but I have some specific collectors who just want faces. Someone said my strength is faces, that I should explore the way I do them. So in 2020, I started seeing how I could make it more sculpted, more interesting, doing something with light and shade, where there will be strong contrast with the model and background. I saw one picture online I think, of one soldier. One African soldier. I asked the page, can I paint this? I didn’t know it was a common picture everywhere.
Lucie: The actual photograph was like an Associated Press photograph?
Opeyemi: Yeah. I liked the expression of this soldier. It was so raw, and so hot. These soldiers are facing a lot, and you can see the emotions in the eyes. The page said sure, and after I painted it, someone told me someone else has painted it too. But someone bought it from me. That was where the soldiers [series] really started.
I was working at the university at that time, so I’m also teaching classes, like they taught me before, teaching portraiture and figure classes. Some people from the university come to the studio for their training, just like I did. It was fun. In some of the students that are there, I saw some interesting and beautiful facial topographies, and I just wanted to have it on canvas, these interesting dichromatic grooves coming all out, protruding, and, you know, you just want to see them, you see these beautiful forms. I’m so interested in the human face, so I just look at faces. My own face doesn’t interest me in any way, so when I see a face that interests me, I’m always going to pursue that face, ask them to come and pose for me.
Lucie: Do you take photos?
Opeyemi: I have them pose and I take pictures, because most of them have their own things to do. They came to learn.
Lucie: So that must be, first of all, good for your self-esteem that now you’re in that position. And also, it’s really good for continuing to learn when you’re teaching people things.
Opeyemi: Absolutely. Yeah. So that’s the background, and how I became more expressive with faces. I had a commission of the bikers, which I didn’t do anymore. It wasn’t something I wanted to do anymore, it wasn’t something that interested me. I felt more interested in just telling stories of emotions. Some people see my faces and say, It’s so sad. It’s giving me so many emotions. I remember when I went to the art fair last year in Winnipeg, oh my word, I literally saw some people cry. It’s like, what the? It’s crazy.
I might be doing inward study, or it’s just my subconscious bleeding out? I ask myself about those questions of how dark am I inside? how deep am I inside? Is it my choice of colours? Because of the response I get to some of these things. It could be that some of these things are like a self-reflection. Maybe what you’re fighting inwards is what your hands and your minds are putting out there. I ask myself these questions all the time. I still need answers. Am I not a happy person? I seem happy. I seem very cheerful, but I know my colors don’t say that sometimes, and my works don’t really show that.
Around two years ago, there was a painting one collector was going to buy from me, titled “Midst of it.” It was from a time when my wife was pregnant. We were not married. She was pregnant, and I’m a Christian, and I was supposed to–it happened. It happened. So I captured that. I painted that. And the wife of the collector said, this person looks like a housewife that’s not happy. I’m glad that I am able to capture the emotion in that particular piece. I sold the piece two years ago, but to be honest, I felt like I should not have put the piece out there. I should have it, because it was my wife that posed for me. Sometimes I still think about that piece, that it was one of the best–I’ve painted my wife several times, but I felt that was one of the best pieces. I shouldn’t have put it out there.
So that’s where I am. I think I’m answering the same question. In 2020-2021, we start processing Canada. Just to have a different angle to life, I feel. I was not eager about travelling, but I felt that there is more to existence. I’ve moved around Nigeria quite a bit, but I haven’t been out of Nigeria. I’m not the sort of person that likes travelling, but my wife wants to travel. So we tried the application, and–and it worked. Then we move here in 2022. We came here–
Lucie: And why? Why Brandon?
Opeyemi: We came to Brandon because I have a cousin here. And having a cousin here, I felt that it’s going to be a good place to start. And because of the application process, because he nominated me, I needed to be in Brandon. I didn’t really browse much about Brandon or Manitoba. He has been here since 2019, so he has experience with the system here. So he could be a good guide to us, and it has been amazing.
So we came. We came July. To be fair, it was a little bit cold. Then, September. The breeze that happened in September! Jesus. The annoying thing was, I was feeling cold, and I kept hearing oh, this is just air conditioning. This is not even cold– just wait. I would go to chess club, and everyone I met there, the first thing: have you seen the winter yet?
So there was this scary, scary, just everywhere: Have you seen the winter?
Brandon is beautiful, but Manitoba is cold. I felt far away from almost everything. I felt–although we are in an information age where things can happen like in [snap] seconds–I felt like I missed my way, my first year here. You know, you plan things and you think you’ve made arrangements for what’s coming, but then you step into the realities of things and realize, I’m not sure I planned anything at all.
The first year, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad financially because I had representation from Out of Africa Gallery, where I had some major sales. The money we had saved, I was going to use for months. So I could relax and also produce pieces. But, the artistic environment, I didn’t feel–I felt lost, to be honest, because I’ve grown with and been used to the vibrance and the richness, and the noise of the arts around.
Lucie: Where you’re coming from was busy, but you’re also a part of that studio, and the studio is part of the country, it had been there for as long as the new country right? Like a part of the structure of it.
Opeyemi: Yeah. There was–thank you for that–there was this huge, structured ecosystem. It’s huge, where I’m coming from. And so I felt isolated, because I’ve been painting with people all these years, where you have a lot of colleagues painting together.
Lucie: And they’re walking around, talking to each other.
Opeyemi: Yeah, it’s a big studio, like so big. You have your own spot. You have your own studio space. I still have my studio space back home. And when I went to Nigeria, I still–we renovated it. Any time I go there, I just paint.
Here, I felt I detached myself from that, and then the frustrations started coming. You know my body of work has been relatively Black. So the thing is, I don’t even know Black or White. When you travel, then you see that oh, they are Black people, they’re White people. In my country, they have this color. So there is nothing, no conversation of being Black–there’s nothing to discuss about that. But come here, and now you have to be aware of the surroundings. You have to be aware of things around, and you have to be knowledgeable about, the issue of Black.
OK. So, I came. I didn’t even know I was Black, you know?
Lucie: But you’re aware that there’s like, Black Americans for example, with a culture that’s distinct.
Opeyemi: Yeah, but I’m not Black American. I’m Nigerian.
Lucie: But you’re aware that it exists as a culture?
Opeyemi: I know that, but not in detail. Maybe on the surface. I didn’t read about it, because I felt I’m not in this space. Where I live, we are Nigerians, not Black Nigerians or White.
Lucie: You said there’s like different ethnic groups, like Yoruba, and Igbo…
Opeyemi: Yeah, different ethnic groups. The major ones are Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo.
Lucie: Is that a visual thing? Can you tell on the street?
Opeyemi: Sometimes.
Lucie: Sometimes, but not always.
Opeyemi: Yeah, well, 80% you can tell.
Lucie: Is there prejudice?
Opeyemi: Can I have expansion on that?
Lucie: Like would someone from one group get followed around a store because the owner thinks they’re going to shoplift?
Opeyemi: Hmm. Not really.
Lucie: Or would you be afraid of being the victim of a crime because you’re surrounded by more of one ethnic group than another?
Opeyemi: Not really, no. Maybe because I stayed in Lagos. Lagos is a Yoruba speaking state, and the socio-economic power of Nigeria as a whole, right? So everybody wants to live in Lagos. That’s where the money is. So you see so many different ethnic groups. There are a lot of–hundreds–of minor ethnic groups. Everybody’s in Lagos, so it’s just like no man’s land now. It’s Lagosians. You make it or you don’t make it. Everybody–everybody’s crazy in their way, but not really racism. But sometimes you know, some people can be like, this particular tribe, they are stupid in this way, some are business-oriented, they like business, like buying and selling. They like shipping and exporting.
Lucie: That’s not necessarily a negative thing.
Opeyemi: Yeah, it’s good things. Some tribes love reading. You can’t really attribute any bad thing. There’s a particular Nigerian mindset. There’s a particular Nigerian behavior that is applicable to all, you know, is always–
Lucie: You have that in common before any other division.
Opeyemi: It’s there.
Lucie: And then you came here, and you were suddenly, very black.
Opeyemi: Maybe at first, I didn’t clearly realize that. I was starting to see–OK. “BIPOC.” I didn’t know what BIPOC was.
Lucie: That’s pretty new, to be fair.
Opeyemi: Then there’s the situation of not having access to what you are used to back home. Access to models that you want to paint. In the beginning, I still relied on my friends back home to take pictures of somebody that has an interesting face, but people can’t take the pictures for you the way you would take it. Although I have friends that are close to me, [who know] the way I take pictures, but still, when I take them, there’s something peculiar about you yourself–
Lucie: Sure. So now you’re painting how Daniel took the photo.
Opeyemi: Thank you. Those frustrations down there, are frustrations of separation. Frustrations of weather. Frustrations of accreditations like people being established back home, who come here and they’re starting fresh, starting at the lowest. Struggling.
And, frustrations of daycare.
Lucie: Is there a better system in Nigeria?
Opeyemi: You’re definitely going to see a school to put your child in. Nothing like a waiting list. I came here and I started hearing the word, “waiting list.” It started becoming like a rhythm: waiting list, waiting list, waiting.
Lucie: For a doctor too.
Opeyemi: It’s crazy, to be honest. So those frustrations also were there because you can’t pursue your career, because you have to be at home with the kids. You have pending things to do, maybe major things to work on.
Lucie: There are so many relationships involved in this.
Opeyemi: And you can’t do things because you don’t understand the system yet. The system, in Brandon, it’s not really fast, but it’s demanding in terms of bills. In Nigeria, you pay your rent once a year. So even if we don’t work this month, you can find out how to make your money before one year lapses. You’re adjusting to this new system, trying to get even an understanding of what’s going on, and you don’t even have a job. And your things don’t seem to work and the bills are coming, the month is ending, things like that. The frustration starts.
Lucie: You mentioned your Nigerian currency was depressed too.
Opeyemi: Yes, so devaluation started to happen. It started happening fast. Inflation had happened back home, the value of your naira couldn’t buy much dollars anymore. Before leaving, if I had three or four million naira, I could buy almost ten thousand Canadian dollars. But now, I can’t even buy three thousand. That started being a factor, because even if I sell art back home, where I used to get three month’s rent, I can’t even pay for one month’s living expenses anymore. So people, you have buyers trying to step back because of your present asking.
But that’s just it–the frustrations of even understanding the loneliness here. Where you don’t have family and friends. You don’t know who to trust. You don’t know. You might have your community, but you don’t know them. You sometimes feel unsafe, and you don’t know what to do. And the system is just happening too fast. You’re not aware of some information, not getting some information, or getting false information–it puts you in a state of confusion. There are some institutions in place to help newcomers, but you need the right information in the first place for them to make your life easier. I missed out on that. You become overwhelmed with things. There are people like that in that space. I was in that space.
It all happened so awkwardly. Sometimes, I question my decisions. Why did I move? Sometimes I consider that I might be in the wrong place.
And then sometimes I feel that well, I made the decision, so where do I go from here? I went home last year to see. You know, to just seek answers. I went home. And to be honest, when I went home last year, coming back felt like I was coming home. Coming back here felt like I was coming home. Maybe because I got to know the system a little bit better. But my earliest settling here, and everything that happened in between, was depressing. I regretted some actions. My wife liked it here. But as an artist, I felt I lost my way, even just in terms of what I should have been doing. I felt as if I was becoming weak in my work, in the appearances of my work. Sometimes I felt strong. Sometimes I’ve felt tested. At those times, I thought about working on something. Working on a show or on a theme that somehow reflects some of these phases that I have passed through. I’m still not out of it. I’m still right in the middle of it.
Then you came along. At that time you came, all this had been happening, but I had something else in my mind to work on. Then this came into picture of trying to see–trying to talk about my experiences as an immigrant. Mine, as a visual artist, and being a commercial artist. Me, away, in Brandon.
Lucie: You are. You’re really far away.
Opeyemi: Brandon, [sarcastically] so big, so artistic. But I’ve met nice people along the way. Which has been amazing. I worked in Art Mosaic. I’ve met nice people that have been nice to me. I’ve also met people that have–one time, I was in Walmart and one person called to me, “Hey, fuck you.” Like, “Fuck off.” What the–? I was just walking, I was just trying to put something in my car.
Lucie: And somebody just called you.
Opeyemi: She was in a car. And she opened up: “Hey, fuck off.” So stupid. Then we moved on. But things like this call for reflection. Is it because I’m Black? Is it because I’m not wanted here? That was hovering in my mind for a while. What could cause that? She said it so meanly. She was so mean, saying it.
Lucie: It’s funny to realize that because of who I am, I assume that it was totally random and had nothing to do with you. But of course you wonder, is it because I’m an immigrant, is it because I’m Black, is it because I’m a Black man?
Opeyemi: Yeah, all those things. To be honest, for weeks I was thinking about that particular incident. It happened. And sometimes you meet some people who want to have a conversation with you, and you talk. But there’s so much, “What are you saying?” We speak English, but our pronunciations of words, and how we understand each other, or our accent, it’s different.
Lucie: And your rhythm, yeah. It’s a different accent.
Opeyemi: Yeah! So sometimes, you hear: you said? what did you say? pardon? come again? You repeat it, and it still doesn’t seem right. So maybe you start to want to sound the way they sound, but then you sound foolish. Like we call it “wah-tah,” but here you say “whu-derr.” I can’t say it like that. Those earlier things are like a nightmare in how much nothing seems right, but it is what it is.
People come here with more than ten years in practice, and they come with masters degrees, into the system, and don’t even have a place. Can you imagine how frustrating that can be? Just because of the system–although you know every country has different ways, policies, procedures–all these things you need to have to be able to practice here. Being a medical doctor and transitioning to be a taxi driver, for example. Do you know how mentally draining that can be? So you see people wearing smiles, but are they smiling inside?
That’s why I have pieces that are showing a state of confusion. Because it’s mentally draining, it can be devastating, and it can lead to putting your anger on family, and being aggressive. Some people come at the age of 40, 30, trying to find a place, and they see how nothing seems to be happening.
Lucie: You’re saying you need to adjust the core that you’ve been building in yourself for your whole life. It can be an identity, your career.
Opeyemi: Right. My wife, she studied Marine Biology. She had started practicing back in Nigeria, but now she’s back to school for five years. Is draining for me. I plan to do my masters in Fine Arts as well, to see better opportunities as well as practicing, lecturing, things like that. Because of that, and having kids that you can’t even get like daycares for–we only got daycare for them because my wife went back to school.
The first two years, before daycare, were hell. Because of distractions, I was painting and I didn’t even know what I was doing. I let go of a work because I felt, oh, I think I’m OK with it. But deep down I’m not OK with it. Back home, I wake up in the morning, go to studio, come back in the evening. It’s planned like that because we understand the system we grew up in, but here–coming here at the age of 30-something trying to understand a new system. You are going backwards [in maturity]. It doesn’t happen to all, but it happens to most.
Lucie: You found the models for this series in Brandon.
Opeyemi: Yeah. Mostly all immigrants as well. Students.
Lucie: That’s a big reason that people immigrate.
Opeyemi: Yeah, some people migrate for that, to go further. To learn more in an international space rather than local. Some people do that. I didn’t. I’m glad I schooled back in Nigeria. I’m glad I had that.
Lucie: It’s nice that you can bring it with you.
Do you find that what you’re painting is them reflecting on how much they relate to the experiences you are talking about? After you explain the project to them, do you find that your experience was relatable to them?
Opeyemi: Yes, some of them also had that similar experience where they felt like going back. It felt like a mistake as well, we missed home. One complained that she had to leave the province. She felt at home here, a little bit. But she didn’t have any friends, she said. She felt almost [as though she was] going insane at one point. Like I said, here, you don’t know people. And even being cordial, there’s a mood in conversations, things you say get funny looks. You have to mince your words. You might offend people.
Lucie: You might offend people in Nigeria, too.
Opeyemi: Yeah, but we have modes of communication where you know if a person is joking.
Lucie: You can’t tell somebody’s being sarcastic here.
Opeyemi: Here you have to know how to pick your words. Sometimes you end up not saying what you want to say because you don’t know what to say, so sometimes you just keep quiet. You don’t know what annoys people here. You don’t. And a lot of things annoy people here. It’s just so complicated here. Where I come from, we are happy people. We don’t take things too seriously–and we are serious by the way. But here I think people take every inch of words, like they’re looking for fault. I don’t know. It might be natural. I think that people are–
Lucie: Afraid of getting in trouble?
Opeyemi: Yeah.
Lucie: You’re thinking that if they can be offended by what you say, then you can’t be offended by what they say? Can you give me an example of some time that you’ve offended somebody?
Opeyemi: It’s not like I’ve offended somebody. But there are some words I want to say just in passing as a joke, but you know, something in the ambience–
Lucie: It tells you not to. So there’s the language that isolates you, that keeps you quiet. And then you also spoke about the cold keeping you inside. So these are all the different barriers that are keeping you from relating to people.
Opeyemi: It’s easier to communicate with fellow Nigerians–
Lucie: You know, a lot of people through church as well?
Opeyemi: Yeah. I’m grateful for that. It’s peaceful, having that community as well. I like everybody. There’s just this barrier still.
Lucie: I was thinking about your church, when you were talking about that realization that you can’t trust anybody, that it takes a long time to build trust. I wonder if the church builds trust faster, when you know that you have the same value system together.
Opeyemi: I’ve been there for three years now, so I have some people that I know I can trust. The level depends on the intensity of the information you want to trust with them. The only one I can trust at that high level is my wife, to be honest. Like I said when I was speaking for recent immigrants in general, everybody’s trying to find their balance. Some have gotten into a lot of debt because of misunderstanding the system.
Lucie: You don’t even know how much there is to understand when you grow up inside something.
Opeyemi: Yeah, you grew up with it, you have known how it works, and here you are. Mostly, they are trying to keep their feet up, even up, get balanced. So they make some financial decisions, and find themselves in trouble. You ask yourself, how did I get into this restless year? These things affect overall health, affect overall stability, affect overall reliance. So you can’t really put pressure on people who are themselves trying to understand where they are. You want to ask for help, but, oh, this person is not doing OK either.
Lucie: While you were working on this series, trying to tap into all of those emotions, and, I think, getting over a hump of not feeling particularly inspired–your brother died back in Nigeria.
Opeyemi: Yes. When I started this project, we talked about doing a show about refugees suffering from cold. Later, we talked, and I said I think it’s changed for me now. I want to talk about immigrants and some of the early experiences. Then–you know this is like my first solo exhibition–I was so excited talking about this, and the initial excitement of migrating. You know when you’re coming here, you are all happy.
Lucie: Big adventure!
Opeyemi: You land, and you’re so excited.
Lucie: You came in July.
Opeyemi: You think big of yourself, like, I’m gonna achieve! I’m gonna do this, do that. And you settle in. And the reality starts to kick in. And you feel it’s too much. It’s a lot, to be honest. It’s a lot. It’s a lot to leave everything back. I’ve sold everything. It’s supposed to be that you finish there, you continue things here. Then you realize you’re finished. You’re starting entirely at level zero.
Those are feelings that happen for most people when they come, and I wanted to talk about that. I was happy to talk about that. I applied for the Manitoba Arts grant, and you encouraged me to apply for the Canada Council. I got them both. I was so excited.
Then, while I was getting references for the pieces, my wife had an accident. Nine months pregnancy on, she wrote the car off. Almost $28,000, because the car was like eight months old. So, we have to find a way to pay it off.
Lucie: Yeah, that’s a year for one person. But the baby’s OK.
Opeyemi: Baby was OK. She was OK.
Lucie Car was not OK.
Opeyemi: We got into financial trouble. Which, you know, financial trouble is not a good trouble. You’re put in a state of huge confusion.
Lucie: It’s anxiety and fear all the time.
Opeyemi: To be honest, yes. I’m an artist. Paintings don’t sell every day. It’s not grocery [money]. So that happened.
The Manitoba Arts Council Grant came in, so that’s a hopeful time for me to start the project. I was happy about that. I started.
Then in August, I lost my cousin. She stepped out of the house, and a car hit the car she was in. She died instantly. Horrible death. My narrative started to change, because–I had had these references in my head. I’ve done a few color studies of compositions about departure time in airports, luggage, eating in restaurants with a clock. Things started to shift with the loss of my cousin. I started to think that these are just things that come into my head, while I should be looking at things that happened. Maybe I could have said something different when we spoke last that could have influenced or gotten involved with this tragic end of existence.
It was like that for a month, then things started becoming very dark. All the references I had in mind to put down for the show didn’t make sense to me anymore, because I started needing to do paintings that way, just seeing people lost in thoughts. People that were seated and looking confused. Unaware of their environment. In that space of having no understanding of what is actually happening.
I had questions like that, and no paintings that I was feeling excited about.
In December, my brother was sick. My father told me, sent some test results to me and to some of my friends that are doctors back in Nigeria to interpret them. In the results we saw, and for weeks he had been eating and nothing stayed down. You know, even before he passed, I had the sense–I was speaking with my third brother–the sense that something terrible might happen was just crawling in my head. I was praying for the worst not to happen. And the the shocking news: on the day of his surgery, he didn’t make it from the house.
These are not things that will make you mentally stable. It makes you think a lot, try to find solutions. These are major troubles because it’s all about life. It’s about existence, you know.
You see, things are good. If things are good it’s because you’re healthy. When you’re healthy, you think you have a lot of problems to solve, right? When you become unhealthy, then you have just one problem. Every other problem doesn’t look like a problem anymore. You just have one problem: to survive.
So that became the picture and the reality of my life at that time. So what do you expect? The paintings became–started becoming worse. There was no level of excitement anymore. That space from August to December changed everything about what I wanted to push out for the exhibition.
Cold affected me my first two years, like I had an issue with mild frostbite, where I put my leg in warm water most of the time while I was even painting, when I have these sensations of swelling. Sometimes I go out in the winter, and get frozen legs, and I come back, put my leg on the heater directly, which they say is a very bad idea, but I don’t have the freaking knowledge about some of these things, like I came from a very hot climate.
Lucie: Yeah. How cold does it get? Does it freeze? It never freezes.
Opeyemi: Are you kidding? The best we have is plus 16 or plus 20–really just plus 20.
Lucie: That’s the coolest you get.
Opeyemi: We don’t even check the weather, for crying out loud. I never thought about something like a weather forecast.
Lucie: Oh, we’re obsessed.
Opeyemi: When I came here, I became someone who checks the phone all the time to see the current weather. I have a piece of that where she’s holding a cup and the phone on her lap. A detail of that painting is that particular screen is the weather forecast. I was thinking about this.
Then when my brother died, I was indoors for three to four weeks. And to be honest, the cold, I didn’t bother about the cold then. Nothing, nothing of that sort was my problem now. My only problem was how? What did we do wrong? Could I have done better? Can I find blame around some negligence, and things like that. Even today, I am still thinking about the reality of what just happened. Like, is this is this–is this? Am I still dreaming?
Lucie: Like, that’s the only way I can fix this is to wake up.
Opeyemi: I have to think about that every freaking day. There’s no day I go into the shower, that that’s not what I think about. From the beginning of showering to the end, till I come out from the bathtub, there is no day, no freaking single day, that I don’t go there. Sometimes I want to sit down and just let the water pour, and understand what just happened.
My brother was so precious to the family. You just imagine, how–what, is that the end? He was planning to join me here. He’s in the pool. I feel a loss of words. Sometimes during this period I was just Googling death. Death. I don’t even care about, you know, things anymore. Nothing freaks me. I was not goal-oriented. I wasn’t in pursuit of happiness. I wasn’t in pursuit of anything self-lifting. I was just…there. Thinking. I was thinking a lot.
The shift, the pieces I started after that, were not happy either. That’s how these two things changed the whole narrative for me, how I was producing work for the show. I apologize on behalf of that, but it’s just–my reality became about mental survival.
Lucie: That’s like the real–we’ve talked about this–the real privilege of having a public art gallery instead of a commercial gallery. All that I was ever expecting from you was for you to unfold your inner world onto the canvas, right? Not a commission for a bunch of portraits like I’ve seen in your other series. What you’ve done is exactly what a public art gallery allows. I mean, hopefully you can sell them, and make money at some point, but that’s not why you make them. That’s the nice thing.
I want to make sure to talk about how much this series really does differ from other work of yours. It has an impressionist style, the expressive brushstrokes, and underpainting that is a kind of signature look for you, but you’ve also created these compositions with furnishings and dramatic perspective.
Opeyemi: I already talked about influence, as in your environment, and influence, like your biography. I grew up in Nigeria. So we are this color. What happens socially is what I want to document as an artist. I did that in a body of work. Faces that I see, in my colors, with interesting topographies I want to paint.
Lucie: Your colors like your palette?
Opeyemi: No, like the color of my skin
Lucie: The same color as you.
Opeyemi: Yeah, right. So I paint that. I mention color because I know you guys like colors here, like you like Black and White.
Lucie: We like to use those metaphors, yeah.
Opeyemi: I’m saying I did that because of my background and my environment, right? So, coming from what I used to do, to where I am right now. I was doing that because of my environment, then I came here. I had been relying on some references from where I was coming from. So I didn’t open myself up to the opportunities around me in this environment. I rented a studio space in downtown Brandon, in a photography studio. That’s because you came to my studio at home and accused me of painting the small pieces. I wanted to get a studio space outside.
Lucie: You said after your son was born, your studio had to move to behind your couch.
Opeyemi: I wanted something outside, because I was used to going outside my house. Painting is work. My first month, two, three months, there, it didn’t make sense because the space I rented had no access to natural light. After three months I asked her, can I just put my easel towards the front of the store? She said why not? So I moved all my things, but I hated it. I changed lights, did everything, still didn’t work. It was bouncing my colours.
I was still relying on my friends back home to take reference photos. I didn’t open myself to the beauty around me. Then, all of a sudden, I looked around and wow, I saw I have this antique chair here, and what a nice and interesting floor. I should do something that shows these things in their beauty, beyond even my comfort zone, of face to torso portraits. I could get models here to pose, and let’s see the outcome. I did some coarse sketches, and yeah, this is a good chair. I could explore this more. I could go beyond this, and make it compositional, and add the aesthetics of the floor.
As I started that, I came across Lucian Freud’s works. Those were not happy works. And those were amazing pieces, in their rawness and the richness of the colors. I like his color scheme–it resonated with what I do as well. It’s all muted colors–
Lucie: And very pasty as well.
Opeyemi: Yeah. So I saw the floor and realized, since when can I explore this beautiful floor? I have it, and it was wasted on me. So last year, I thought I needed to just, you know, do this.
Lucie: Start painting the room?
Opeyemi: Yeah, start evolving–evolving these things into my paintings to see what happens. I invited friends from church–from choir–to do this with me. When this project came along, this environment was still not part of it, but I put in additions. I had some things I wanted to do in paint. I’d add stuff, like legs on a heater and things like that. And the happiness, excitement of coming, and landing, and you know, some struggles.
Lucie: And the window pane pieces.
Opeyemi: Things like that, those were things I had before. And now, when I was having to experience grief, my comfort was Lucian Freud’s paintings. These paintings resonated with all the things happening around me. They were so depressing.
Lucie: You can see the absurdity of life in some of them. The meaninglessness.
Opeyemi: Yeah, it was always just–it was heavy. And for a while, that was it. I started making use of my environment. I invited Shalom to model. That was the first trial with the chair. I added the cigarette as I was painting.
Lucie: It’s a little pop. It also has a background that’s a bit chaotic.
Opeyemi: I added it to create a different story, in harmony with what’s happening in the painting overall. As I was working on that piece [snap!] I saw the spark. It started making sense to me. So I started researching Lucian. I started researching how to compose these things. I got inspiration even from the way he arranges his figures. I have not been able to work from a live model who will sit for me for months and months, as he does. He does most of his work from life, right?
Lucie: Well he has the money to pay a model.
Opeyemi: Yes, his works are heavy, and millions of dollars. While I’m broke as hell. So, those were the inspirations for me, because his work resonated with things happening in my life at that time.
And the environment was now also pulling stronger emotions and feelings out of me, and I felt that well, I need to grab this. So that’s what I hold myself to now. Embracing my immediate environment and embracing my studio space. Because it was all beauty around me, but I didn’t see it. When I started taking most of the pictures myself, I started having this sense of happiness, and enjoying the way I saw myself transitioning. I do figures and faces, but I incorporate flaws, and find new angles.
I’d never come across Lucian Freud before. When I saw him last year I had to call him my friend and ask, Do you know this guy? Maybe if I was back home his work wouldn’t resonate with me. But because of my environment, his work was my spark.
Lucie: You needed to be unsettled, you needed to be uncomfortable in order for him to be right for you.
Opeyemi: The photography studio has some beautiful chairs. She is a collector of all those old fashioned chairs–she loves them. I was so grateful to have her space to even create this body of work, because this is like a stepping stone to what will come after. So, the Lucian was an influence to my reference choice.
Lucie: How did you come across him?
Opeyemi: On my phone, I think I just saw a picture randomly. Then, wow. Look at the richness in this. I saw the chair. I saw the floor. Look at my floor. Just look at it. It was interesting. I had started a piece before the show–a piece that was just the chair, now it has a guy resting in a blue jacket. That was a picture that was sent from it to Nigeria because I like the guy’s face. The chair was not the chair. I changed the chair. I changed the chair to what I have in the studio. I rearranged everything. The floor. I changed the floor to the floor I actually have in the studio, just to hold the rhythm of what I’m actually working on. When I started the Shallom piece, The Weight they cannot see, that became about the floor.
Lucie: So that’s like setting an anchor here. To make the story be about here.
Opeyemi: Lucian was showing me how to embrace my immediate environment. I incorporated it into the production of this piece. I’m super excited with what I’ve done thus far with them, with the space I’m in. The last piece, one of the last pieces, was basically inspired by Lucian’s painting [Sleeping Man, 1987]. In December when I was looking at this piece, I just wanted to create something like it, and I had a model from my church come model for me. This is just a brilliant piece. I had more more of his works on my phone, and sometimes some of them also decide how I pose because I love the way–
Lucie: They’re so heavy.
Opeyemi: Yes, so heavy. He uses oil, oil is a heavy medium. Acrylic is not heavy–as you use it, it flattens out. I’ve been using acrylic, but not to the level where I wish to be. I’m praying to get deeper into how I build it. But oil generally has body, where–and there’s this romance with oil colors. They move together, they blend together, so beautifully. That’s painting alla prima for oil, it’s called, where colours marry each other. But with acrylic, once you do that, they separate. It’s just a very flat, dry, medium, that’s–
Lucie: Well, you’re fighting the air.
Opeyemi: If you’re fast enough you might find some harmony to it. They might work together. But you also might have a lot of separation. I struggle with that. I stopped using oil because it chokes me up. I used it all through university, but it chokes me up and I’m asthmatic. I realized that sometimes I become so sweaty, all closed up. Maybe the ventilation wasn’t enough.
Lucie: And you said the pollution in Lagos–versus here, that your asthma hasn’t been as bad since you–
[Looking at Rose, 1990] This one’s funny because it’s kind of badly drawn.
Opeyemi: What I like about it is–I hope I can also be that. I want something not loosely done, but not perfect. In his works, you might see some elongations, you can see some distortions, things like that, which is the beauty of the piece. Look at that. It looks, like you say, badly drawn, but it’s the absolute beauty about the piece. It’s that he is drawing life.
Lucie: Well that’s it: life as he’s experiencing it, not as a lens, not as a machine, but as an experience.
Opeyemi: You can create your own story around that, just the imperfection of maybe one shoulder is shorter than the other. I know how to check proportions. You learn that in school, but sometimes those things can limit the potential of expression.
What I wanted to express, like in the painting of my wife from the window, I want to express more. I like the two titles you sent to me, that could be one of my projects going forward. And I want to be–I want to be un-perfect with that. I want to be badly drawn, and to have interesting windows. So that’s that. I think I have to make sure to reference Sleeping Man –
Lucie: We’ll put it on the wall.
Um. Would you like to dedicate the show to your brother?
Opeyemi: Yes, please. Please, I want to. Because the piece of him is going to be my permanent collection, I’m sharing that. Is a selfie of him, me, and his son. I think that will be titled A Selfie with Olalekan.
Lucie: Yes. Good.
Published 17 June, 2025.