Samson Bakare: Celebrating Black Life Through Art

Samson Bakare, a Lagos-based artist, uses his paintings as a tool to take viewers on a journey through time. His works celebrate Black life and Pan-Africanism, depicting vibrant scenes of Black characters enjoying moments of privilege and leisure. By doing so, he challenges Western art’s traditional narratives and confronts Western history’s dark side.

In one of his most striking pieces, “Circa 1885,” Bakare portrays an aristocratic Black couple before a royal court. Black cherubic angels surround the pair and a tame leopard, reimagining the historical 1884 “Scramble for Africa.” This powerful reinterpretation gives Black people the history (and future) they deserve while confronting the empire and reconciling past injustices.

His work centers around propagating Black identity and values in contemporary and retrospective contexts while representing historical scenes. Bakare’s narrative covers portraits of African men and women with blank expressions as they strive for cultural emancipation. He states that his “work is a time machine through which you can see the past and behold the future from the same standpoint.”

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Bakare’s exploration is heavily influenced by East African Coptic art, even as the theme and subject remain a hybrid of classicism and stylization, which he calls Afro-classicism. He has depicted several satirical pieces to review the excesses of British imperialism and racial equality.

In 2018, Bakare became a member of the Arts in Medicine Fellowship, Nigeria, an NGO established solely to improve healthcare through the arts. He has been featured in local and international exhibitions, including Counter History Alliance Francaise (Lagos 2019) and the Occupied Space exhibition (Accra, 2020).

Bakare’s works have been widely collected by notable collectors globally, and his impact on the art world continues to grow. His art is visually striking and provokes thought and conversation around important topics, such as Black identity and the dark history of Western imperialism. Through his work, Bakare provides a platform for people to reimagine the past and project a better future and encourages us all to restore pride, heal the broken, and retell the stories.