Follow Us on Google
By Henry Akubuiro
From the 1st to the 31st of October, 2025, four resident artists from Nigeria assembled at one of Nigeria’s leading artists’ havens, Alexis Galleries, at Akin Olugbade Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, to engage in a four-week residency programme, thanks to the sponsorship of Macallan, the popular Speyside single malt Scotch whisky brand.
The residency programme enabled the participating artists to work on new works in seclusion, away from the bustle of the city, and share ideas. The products of their residency will be showcased in an exhibition entitled “Recycled Matters II”, running from Saturday, February 7 to 21, 2026.
The disciplines of the four artists – Morakinya Seye, Ibrahim Afegbua, Konboye Eugene and Aliya Victor – cut across fabric and rubber materials, as well as metal design. Daily Sun spoke with the artists shortly before they rounded off their residency at Alexis Galleries.
Morakinya Seye works with fabric materials on canvas. He sources his materials from tailor shops and assembles the fabric materials together to bring out the aesthetics in them. He also sources upcycling materials from dumps, intermarrying them with paper materials like discarded newspaper newsprints. Yevend product is an embellished work of art.
Working with other artists during the residency has proved to be useful to him. He told Daily Sun: “We learn from one another. You see people from different perspectives, and, when you pick one or two things from others, you add it to yours to enrich your art. Coming here, I have learnt through their works and interacting with them.
“The residency has also forged ethnic integration among the artists, who come from different ethnic backgrounds. The residency has provided freedom for us to concentrate on work without interruption from family and friends.
“I would like to appreciate Alexis Galleries for creating a platform like this and the sponsor, Macallan, for throwing their weight behind this residency.”
He will be exhibiting “Searching for the Golden Land”, “Political Flattery”, “Once Upon a Time”, and “Here You are, Aduke”.
Ibrahim Afegbua is a sculpture artist, who specialises in metal. One of his major media is binding wire, a material used for structural re-enforcement. Using it affords him the flexibility to express himself in art. For the residency programme, he blended them with pipe, a lightweight material. It also gives him that flexibility to suggest forms. He likes portraying works of female anatomy and beauty. Binding wires, in particular, help him to create semblance of hairs and identify certain cultures through hairstyling, including his Etsako culture.
Other News
“The essence of bringing us together in this residency is for us to share ideas, because it is a learning process at residencies globally. As we work, we share ideas, and we learn more and advance in our techniques. It has been a wonderful experience, because we have learnt a lot of things, coming from different ethnic groups. The residency is based on recycling, so what we do mostly here has been using discarded materials and exploiting them to create something tangible. The experience has been wonderful. The owner of Alexis Galleries is a woman who doesn’t want artists to remain at the same level. She is wonderful.”
He will be exhibiting “Transcendence”, “Ori Imu”, “Treasures”, and “Okpotso”.
Konboye Ebipade Eugene has been working with recycled materials for the last seven years. He created four works during the residency – works that echo the harsh realities faced by the average Nigerian, deep emotions, and correcting mistaken appearance notions.
“I enjoyed the four-week residency programme,” he told Daily Sun. It has been a great time for me, because I have learnt from everybody – from fellow resident artists and others they brought to talk to us and share their experiences. I am going to live here with a different artist. Alexis Galleries and Macallan have done well for us. I have learnt new things and have connected with great minds, most of whom I had only seen from a distance before now.”
He will be exhibiting “Sorrows, Tears and Blood”, “Guilty as Charged”, and “Black and Beautiful II”.
Aliya Diseotu Victor has equally had a swell time at Alexis Galleries in the course of the residency programme. He thrives on discarded metal sheets to do his work. He got the inspiration from his own Ijaw origin, where he had come to realise “identical resemblances across the region, so I try to depict this understanding in my own structures – body structures.”
Victor considered it a privilege to be working with other resident artists at Alexis Galleries. Some of them are painters, and I have learnt a lot from them and also from fellow sculptors, including in the area of managing space. It will help me after here. The time factor is another thing I have benefitted from this exercise. Sometimes I use three or four months to produce a work on my own, but the residency, because of its limited duration, has made us work day and night to produce works.
“I appreciate Alexis Galleries. It is one of the most exceptional galleries in Nigeria that encourages artists, especially emerging artists. I thank the sponsor, as well, Macallan.” He will be exhibiting “Leke-Keke”, “The Blues, Ever Green”, “Olotu”, and “The Joy is Local Occupation”.
Patty Chidiac Mastrogiannis, the founder of Alexis Galleries, described Recycled Matters II as a group exhibition that “examines issues of waste, utility, and material transformation within Nigeria’s socio-economic landscape.” The exhibition is curated by Uche Obasi.
