Meet The Artists Behind CraftVantage 2026: Bold Stories, Sustainable Futures

This May, CraftVantage will present its 2026 Graduate Exhibition, Bold Stories, Sustainable Futures, bringing together emerging Nigerian artists whose works explore identity, resilience, memory, culture, movement, and everyday life through painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media.

Opening from May 26–28 at Wings Office Complex, Victoria Island, Lagos, the exhibition reflects CraftVantage’s commitment to supporting young artists through mentorship, visibility, sustainable practice, and long-term creative development.

The featured artists each bring distinct artistic voices and perspectives. Afolabi Samuel’s paintings document everyday Nigerian experiences, urban life, and Yoruba heritage through expressive compositions and bold colour. Nasir Adamu’s expressionist acrylic paintings draw from personal experience and cultural identity, creating emotionally evocative works rooted in introspection and storytelling.

Working across sculpture, installation, and painting, Izuka Joy Chidinma uses materials such as fiberglass, wood, clay, and metal to create works rooted in hope, healing, and cultural heritage. Johnson Oyekale Oluwatobi’s mixed media paintings explore African identity, emotion, and psychological experience through layered textures and expressive forms.

Fasinu Ololade Prudence captures the beauty and energy of everyday Nigerian environments through vibrant landscape paintings that transform ordinary scenes into moments of reflection and poetry. Obajuluwa Timothy Segun’s richly textured impasto paintings celebrate the vibrancy of nature, markets, urban life, flowers, and aquatic scenes through layered colour and movement.

Utubor Shadrach Melvin works in expressive figurative painting, capturing human emotion, movement, and the spiritual undertones of everyday Nigerian life through oil on canvas. Oloruntobi Bolaji Esther explores womanhood, resilience, nature, and economic realities through sculpture and mixed media, using resin, metal, wood, and discarded materials to bridge traditional craftsmanship with contemporary discourse.

The Curator, Dr. Bolaji Ogunwo describes the cohort as artists who are “not merely focused on technical execution, but also concerned with storytelling, emotional resonance, social consciousness, and experimentation.”

For CraftVantage founder Oluwayemisi “Misi” Ogunbodede, the exhibition reflects a larger vision. “CraftVantage was created from a simple but important belief: exceptional talent deserves more than admiration. It deserves structure, visibility, opportunity, and long-term support,” she says. “This exhibition is part of building that bridge intentionally.”