Peju Alatise

Peju Alatise started her career as an architect. A discipline which shaped her ability to see materials and techniques in a form that injects intricate detail and life into her subjects and almost makes them come “alive”. She is now an exhibiting participant of the Venice Biennale Architecture which has been postponed to 2021. Peju is a leading voice in contemporary arts on the African continent. Her works challenge the status quo of the African society and also of global affairs Crafting alternative social imageries and challenging master narratives in politics and media, her trajectory sharply illustrates how artists in Africa are filling in the gaps left by official histories. She has been consistent with her experimentation with materials and techniques as a medium to analyse various issues in Nigeria especially topics about the dilemma of the girl child.

• The founder of the ANAI Foundation (a non-profit foundation dedicated to the development of visual arts in Nigeria, and the first purpose built artist’s residency with a well-equipped ceramic studio in Nigeria. Which offers sponsored training programs for young artists in Nigeria. 2018

• One of three exhibiting artists from Nigeria at the 57th Venice Biennale Art, first Nigerian Pavilion of which her exhibit, ‘ Flying Girls’ is described as “…technically beautiful and haunting at the same time.”

• 2016 research fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art

• 2017 FNB art prize winner where her thought-provoking work “O is the new +” was selected as the foremost entry on the continent.

• Manifesta 12, Resignification of Black bodies.  Palermo, Italy. Curator-Awam Ampka (New York University) June 2018

• Interwoven Dialogue exhibition, Aicon gallery, Newyork, 2018

• 1:54 contemporary African art New York, London. 2018

• 1:54 contemporary African art, Marrakech, Boston and London2019

• Paradox, Paradigm and Parasites, solo exhibition, Arthouse contemporary, Lagos.  April 2018

• Antiquities across time and place exhibition with Wole Soyinka  Cooper Gallery, Harvard university, USA.  Nov- 2017 to June 2018

• Familiar boundaries – Infinite possibilities exhibition. August Wilson centre,  Pittsburgh,  USA.  Curator- Kilolo Luckett. October 2018 to March 2019

• EVA Ireland Biennial 2018. Curator- Inti Guerrero

• Péju Alatise ‘Memoirs of the forgotten’ 2019 Sulger Buel Gallery, London

• Intricacies: Fragment & Meaning Aicon Gallery, New York 2019